John Ross (WR, CIN) - Week 15 Waiver Wire Pickups

December 12, 2018

Bengals wide receiver (WR) John Ross is a waiver wire pickup and add target in leagues for Week 15 of the 2018 NFL season. Brady Grove recommends Ross despite the struggling Cincinnati offense for his consistency in target-volume and red-zone opportunities, even with Jeff Driskel at QB.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 9% of Leagues

ANALYSIS: Things have been getting extremely ugly for the Cincinnati Bengals. Andy Dalton and A.J. Green have been out for the past few weeks and are both out for the remainder of the season, Jeff Driskel is starting at quarterback, Marvin Lewis is (it has to be true this time right?) probably on the way out, and the Bengals have now lost five-straight games to work themselves safely outside the postseason discussion. In viewing his season from the surface, John Ross doesn't appear to be doing a whole lot better with 18 catches out of 43 targets for 200 receiving yards through ten games. However, he has found the end-zone six times in the 2018 campaign and has been playing much better since his week ten performance against New Orleans, and it has continued even with Driskel under center.

Over the last five games Ross has averaged 2.2 receptions out of 5.4 targets for 24.2 receiving yards per contest. Those are certainly not overwhelming figures, but they are a considerable improvement on his numbers from early in the season, and the fact that this production has sustained seems to indicate that he is one of the preferred targets for Jeff Driskel (or at least one of the only ones he can see when the banged-up Bengals O-Line lets the defense through). What's more, Ross's utilization has gotten more creative as evidenced by his two-yard carry against Denver, and he has impressively managed to score in four out of Cincinnati's last five outings. At 5-11 and 190-lbs., John Ross is a small and elusive target, perfect for short-distance gains and finding openings in the end-zone (he has caught seven passes out of nine targets for 42 yards in the red-zone this season). Though it's hard to have confidence that the Bengals will end up in the win-column against for the rest of the regular season, have confidence in deploying Ross in deeper leagues for his scoring potential, even at Jeff Driskel's current level of play.