Chase Brown Waiver Wire Fantasy Outlook Week 5: Is Bengals QB a good pickup? 

The Cincinnati Bengals' RB situation has been a curious one to start the year. In Week 4 against the Carolina Panthers, the Bengals avoided falling into an 0-4 hole with a tidy, if not overly impressive, 34-24 win.

Chase Brown was among the names who impressed on Sunday afternoon, running for 80 yards and finding the end zone twice. He also chipped in with two passes for 12 yards so the Bengals had a plan to get him involved against Carolina. And that is exactly why you should consider Chase Brown a top waiver wire add in Week 5.

NFL: Cincinnati Bengals at Carolina Panthers - Source: Imagn

Best waiver wire pickups for Week 5: Chase Brown

Brown may not outgun lead running back Zack Moss anytime soon. But it was close on Sunday.

Brown had 17 touches to Moss' 19 but Brown eventually ended the afternoon with more touchdowns and yards on his 17 touches. While Moss is the lead running back in this Bengals offense, the fact that the Panthers game wasn't remotely a lopsided split between the two in terms of touches is interesting enough to pump up Brown's fantasy outlook.

Considering Brown finished as RB5 overall close to Moss' RB2 finish in Week 5, there's a lot of cause for optimism here if you badly need a running back on the waiver wire to shore up your depth. Even if you don't need running back depth that bad, you could stash Brown for a rainy day.

At present, Chase Brown is rostered on 55% of ESPN leagues and 61% of Yahoo leagues. All things said and done, you'd have to look long and hard to find better value than Brown on the waiver wire this week. If you do pick him, you could also start both Moss and Brown and see how that shakes out, though the Ravens defense in Week 5 may not be the matchup to exploit.

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