It's game day, folks! The Ravens (1-0) will be flying up north to visit the Bengals (0-1) in Cincinnati to play a divisional matchup against the reigning AFC North champs.
Things cannot be fuzzier surrounding this game when it comes to injuries, availability, volatility, and who's who in fantasy football this weekend among players dressing in Ravens and Bengals threads.
Will Mark Andrews play in a full capacity? Will Joe Burrow improve after his Week 1 flop? Will the Ravens use a running-back-by-committee approach?
Fear nothing! We're here to help inform your decisions ahead of your league's lineup-submission deadline on Sunday.
Antonio Losada joined the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy staff in 2023 after working as a fantasy analyst on a full-time basis for more than five years, earning two FSWA nominations for Fantasy Football Writer of the Year and for DFS Writer of the Year since, and convering the NFL, the NBA, and weekly UFC events.
Here is Antonio's advice for Week 2 of the 2023 NFL regular season touching on fantasy football players from the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals with commentary on their outlooks and ultimate decisions on whether you should start or sit them.
SIT - RBs Gus Edwards, Justice Hill, Melvin Gordon
If that headline doesn't make it obvious, let me expand a bit on this decision.
The Ravens lost Dobbins for the season last Sunday after the fourth-year veteran suffered an Achilles injury that ruled him out for the year. Obviously, the Ravens were going to feed Dobbins the rock a lot of times this season because he was entering the final year of his contract and because that's the gameplan that has worked for Baltimore for years on end now.
Things are going to change with the trifecta of Edwards, Hill, and Melvin Gordon filling the Ravens backfield from Week 2 on.
The former two already split the touches last weekend getting eight carries each and not doing a lot with them barring Hill's two goal-line touchdowns. That, mind you, isn't going to be sustainable. Edwards is the actual rusher with a stronger body and style of play while Hill is the more agily and speedy running back. The script can flip entirely any minute.
And then, there is veteran Pro Bowler Melvin Gordon, who the team elevated to the active roster on Saturday ahead of Sunday's game. Yes, he will be active and take some snaps, but we cannot really predict how many, where those will be taken, and what usage the Ravens are planning on giving MG3 as we have just not seen him take a single snap clad in Ravens' threads yet.
Fade the three rushers of the Ravens unless you want to risk picking the wrong one and eating a goose egg today. If you're one in love with Russian Roulettes, though, feel free to throw a dart toward Edwards/Hill. Someone would eventually hit and end up with a touchdown, but the risk is massive.
START - WR Tee Higgins
All eyes will be on Ja'Marr Chase this weekend after he put up one of his worst stat lines since he entered the league in 2021. Chase could only catch five passes for 39 yards last Sunday against the Browns, the lowest yardage figure since Week 3 of 2022.
I'm here to talk about Higgins, though. The Ravens won't have any of CB1 Marlon Humphrey nor S1 Marcus Williams available in Week 2, which means they won't be able to shadow Ja'Marr Chase with an individual defensive back on Sunday. If the Ravens think Chase is about to bounce back massively and want to put the clamps on him, then they'll need to do so with at least a couple of players bracketing him.
The aftermath? Tee Higgins is about to have a monster game. Higgins will get his dose of veteran CBs in Brandon Stephens, Ronald Darby, and some Rock Ya-Sin, which bodes well for him because he can cook them.
In the three games in which he played more than 10 snaps against the Ravens througout his career, Higgins ended with six, seven, and eight targets catching one, four, and four passes. Humphrey shadowed Chase in all of those games by himself, but that won't be the case this weekend.
I expect more than seven targets, at least four receptions, and a baseline of 40 receiving yards with the chance for a receiving touchdown by Higgins today. Don't make him your WR1/WR2, but if you have room for a FLEX play then Higgins looks like a good enough option for that slot.
SIT - RB Joe Mixon
Mixon has appeared in 11 games against the Ravens throughout his career, and he's topped 80 rushing yards just three times.
If you look at his most recent matchups against Baltimore, from 2021 on, his stat aren't great as he's rushed for no more than 78 times in any of his last four outings facing the Ravens even though he carried the ball between 11 and 18 times each matchup.
Mixon scored one single rushing touchdown in three of those four games, but he needed a ton of carries to get there and his YPC averages fluctuated between 2.5 (the last time he faced Baltimore last January) and 5.6 (three months earlier in Oct. 2022).
One of the greatest units of Baltimore last week was its inside linebacker duo, and that wasn't a fluke as Patrick Queen and Roquan Smith are two of the best ILBs across the NFL. Last season, the Ravens' defense against the run ranked third already, and it's not gotten any worse.
It's going to be hella tough for Mixon to have himself a day against the Ravens, and I'd advise fading him in favor of other rushers in Week 2.
START - TE Mark Andrews
Don't even hesitate for a minute.
Andrews was close to playing last Sunday and in fact, I'm still positive the team left him out of the Week 1 matchup against the Texans simply because the Ravens knew they wouldn't need him to beat Houston.
That was the case, Baltimore won 25-9, and in fact Lamar Jackson just looked toward his reserve tight ends a few times without putting them in any great position to excel. That, of course, will change this weekend against a much stronger opponent in the Cincinnati Bengals.
Lamar has always had an incredible rapport with Andrews. Andrews has trained for two weeks now even if only in a "limited" capacity per the franchise injury reports, and he's more than ready to go. Yes, he's "questionable" to play on Sunday, but that screams "worst-case scenario we'll ease him in" to me.
Andrews was a full participant on Friday's practice, has racked up 533 yards and 6 touchdowns on 45 grabs through nine career games against Cincinnati, and in the last two games facing the Bengals (both without Jackson available), he put up 8-125-1 and 8-89-1 stat lines.
Even if the Ravens use Andrews on a pitch count, odds are they do so in red-zone plays with the chance of Lamar connecting with his favorite weapon for a touchdown.
SIT - WR Zay Flowers
You're not going to sit Zay Flowers in most leagues if you have to draft him because you probably don't have many better wideouts available in your roster. That said, consider this a warning if not an entire "sit/bench" recommendation, or a clear fade in DFS contests today.
Flowers is coming off a terrific debut in Week 1 and he has been proving his talents all throuhgout the summer in training camp and preseason games (although he barely featured in those).
The first-round draft pick of the Ravens caught nine passes out of 10 targets against the Texans in Week 1 racking up 78 yards and adding nine more yards on two rushing attempts. Flowers could have put up more than his total 87 yards from scrimmage had he not lost a few in the last two passes he caught because of some silly playcalling.
I'm sorry to tell you, but having another game like that just one week after debuting to those heights is going to be mad hard for the rookie. Per RotoViz's Screener, there have been 18 rookies since 2000 with 10+ targets in Week 1, and only one of them (Aunquan Boldin in 2003) proceeded to get 10+ targets again in Week 2.
On top of facing historically long odds, there is the fact that the Ravens loaded their offense by adding veterans Odell Beckham Jr. (who is playing in a semi-revenge game after suffering an ACL injury the last time he played Cincy in the Super Bowl and after entering a feud against Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd this summer) and Nelson Agholor, along with the returning Mark Andrews making his 2023 debut today and Rashod Bateman coming off a season-ending injury.
Flowers will put some numbers up because this game projects to hit the high 40s in total points, but I don't expect any gaudy stat line from the rookie with so many other viable options accompanying him in the Ravens' offense.