Cincinnati Bengals Fantasy Football Preview: Andy Dalton
By Tim Daniel
After the best year of his career, can the Red Rifle keep it going?
Folks it’s the middle of May, it’s way too early to prep for your Fantasy Football draft right? WRONG!!!! Dead wrong, If you aren’t preparing now, then why even play?
Andy Dalton will start my preview of each Bengals fantasy value and what they can bring to your team, where should you draft this guy, what value does he bring to your lineup? That is what this is all about, and it’s time to get ready.
Before his injury against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Andy Dalton was on a roll. He was amongst the best quarterbacks in the NFL and we saw a ton more of “Good Andy” than we did “Bad Andy.”
In just 13 games last season NFL.com shows that Andy Dalton had a stat line of 255/386 (66.1 completion percentage) with 25 Passing Touchdowns, only seven interceptions and 3 rushing touchdowns. A pretty nice stat line for a guy who is hated an awful lot in his home city.
Now going into 2016, the Bengals offensive weapons will be a bit different for the Red Rifle. Many Fantasy Football experts are concerned for Dalton’s 2016 season due to the losses of Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu in Free Agency. I disagree with this whole heartedly, and really believe that Dalton is still worthy of QB1 status coming off of the 2015 year.
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Sure Dalton loses Jones and Sanu, but there’s still A.J. Green, Tyler Eifert, Gio Bernard, a strong offensive line and some really solid additions as well. This Free Agency the Bengals signed former New England Patriot and Carolina Panthers star Brandon LaFell, and in the 2016 NFL Draft the Bengals added a very skilled Slot WR in Pittsburghs’ Tyler Boyd and Ole Miss’ Cody Core.
ESPN’s Matthew Berry rated Dalton as his 13th QB, which means if you play in a 10 or 12 team league, you’re looking at Dalton as your QB2. While having guys rated above Dalton like Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady make a lot of sense, why is it people think Tyrod Taylor and Phillip Rivers should be rated higher than Dalton?
Yes, Rivers is a vastly successful NFL QB but is adding Travis Benjamin going to make that much of a difference? I also get that Tyrod Taylor brings the rushing ability to add points to your team, but no. The one year he was a starter, he didn’t play the whole season, he does have guys like Sammy Watkins and LeSean McCoy but no way you can say he all around has better weapons to throw to and add points to your team than Dalton.
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So I will be fair here and say yes, Andy Dalton is a QB1. A low end QB1, but the additions plus the remaining players to me completely outweigh the subtractions of Jones & Sanu. Draft Andy and ride the wave.