Yahoo Sports fantasy analysts Matt Harmon and Andy Behrens discuss why the prolonged holdout from the Bengals wide receiver is reason for fantasy managers to be hesitant to place him in their lineups this week. Hear the full conversation on the “Yahoo Fantasy Forecast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

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Let's just say, hypothetically he's playing in week one.

You hear from the Bengals, he is playing in week one.

I still think he could play in week one and, and because he shows up right before the season starts, he plays like 50% of the snaps, especially because they're going against the Patriots.

Andy, they don't need Jamar Chase to beat the Patriots.

They can do the Yoshi vs thing and the T Higgins thing and be just fine.

Right.

Pro they're probably gonna be the most used Survivor pick in week one.

The Cincinnati Bengals.

So if you have Jamar Chase, like, do, do you take anything that I just said?

And is that actionable information or is it just like, like you said, this is probably just gonna make you worried and that's about that.

Yeah, I kind of feel like that's where it lands.

Although I have, you know, I, I have a couple of teams that, you know, if you and there are people out there who play in like Yahoo public style leagues where your backup receivers are really good players, right?

You might have, I don't know, you might have Christian Watson on the bench, you might have some, some truly fantasy relevant players on the bench and I can't, you know, I'd, I'd be looking at them thinking about starting them over Jamar Chase in a, in a scenario where, as you say, it's, it's imaginable that he might play 40% of the snaps that he might just be in there.

Um, I don't, I, it could be less than that.

I have no idea.

I have absolutely no idea.

And we don't even know what his contract status is gonna be when that game kicks off.

It's a, it's a wild one and they have taken it right up to the line.

Um, and I, you know, I'm, I'm probably gonna have him outside my, my top 10, which feels stupid.

It's a, you know, it's a, it's a matchup that I sh I should be willing to exploit.

It's a game that they should win comfortably.

He's obviously he's also somebody who, like, as soon as he comes back, it's not like we have to worry about the rapport that Jamar Chase has with, you know, Joe Burrow, that's nonsensical.

So there shouldn't be a lot of worries here.

But the, the idea that, you know, he might not be a 90% of the snap sort of player initially does, it does have me a little bit concerned and I think if you have Higgins on, that's one thing I do feel convicted about in this situation if you've got T Higgins on your fantasy team in week one, you should probably break some ties in favor of starting him because he's in a really good position here.

Uh, with Chase probably being somewhat limited even from a snaps perspective, maybe, but probably from just a deployment perspective because they didn't get to work with him all off season.

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