As the November 10 NFL trade deadline gets closer, the Bengals are going to keep hearing the running back chatter, and Jonathan Taylor is one of the names already floating around. That buzz has picked up because some fans have turned on Chase Brown after a rough stretch. But Cincinnati has bigger questions to answer before it hands over real money and draft capital for another back.
The first issue is that Brown is not operating in a vacuum. The Bengals have run the ball the fewest times in the NFL, which makes them the league’s most one-dimensional team and also makes life easier on opposing defenses.
They can key in on what’s coming. That shows up in the numbers: Brown ranks 10th in the NFL in facing 8+ defenders in the box when rushing, and among running backs with at least 35 carries, he has seen the 10th-highest percentage of heavy boxes.
That context matters when people point to the Jacksonville game, where Brown finished with 10 yards on nine carries. The Bengals as a team ran 15 times for 23 yards that day, so the problem went far beyond one player.
Brown’s first carry lost 5 yards when Jaguars safety Antonio Johnson immediately shut it down, and that stop came from a defender who was at least the eighth man in the box. Video suggested Jacksonville had a pretty good handle on Cincinnati’s intentions, too.
Samaje Perine is part of this conversation as well, even if he does not yet meet the 35-carry threshold used by Next Gen Stats. He has 27 rushing attempts so far, and his workload is expected to rise.
There is also a wrinkle that gets lost in the hand-wringing over Brown: according to Next Gen, he is still the 10th-most efficient rusher, and that number is higher than Jonathan Taylor’s.
The offensive line has its own share of blame. ESPN has Cincinnati first in run-block win rate, but PFF’s grading paints a much rougher picture.
Amarius Mims, who has been the Bengals’ best pass blocker, is the worst run blocker among the starting five and one of the worst in the league, ranking 71st out of 74 tackles in run blocking. Orlando Brown Jr. is 42nd.
Dalton Risner has been Cincinnati’s best run blocker by a wide margin, with an 80.7 grade that ranks ninth out of 77 guards. The front office should seriously think about keeping him through the 2027 season.
Dylan Fairchild is 49th out of 77 guards, while Ted Karras sits 18th out of 35 centers. Even so, Karras’ 61.9 grade is only slightly better than Orlando Brown Jr.’s 60.5.
That leaves the Bengals with a very real possibility: the issue may not be just the backs. It may be the blocking, the play-calling, the scheme, and the tendency to lean away from the run when it actually has a chance.
For now, the smarter move is to stay with Chase Brown and see what the Bengals’ own backs can do with a larger workload before chasing help from outside. Perine has become a popular name in Bengals circles, the kind of status usually reserved for backup quarterbacks, but his 4.1 yards per carry is his lowest since he became a semi-permanent part of the team in 2020.
If Perine gets more work and performs better than Brown, then a trade becomes more reasonable. If he runs at the same level, the finger-pointing has to shift toward the play calling, the predictability, the scheme, and the blockers up front.
The Bengals expect the run game to look better after the bye week no matter who is carrying the load. That has usually taken time in Zac Taylor’s offense. But before Cincinnati goes shopping for a running back, it needs less predictability, a better fit against the defense across from it, and serious improvement from three of the five offensive linemen in run blocking.
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