Thursday Walkthrough Week 7: This is 40

Pat Kerrane

16 Oct 2025

Welcome to the Thursday Walkthrough for Week 7 (Mat Irby's Quick Slant will return next Thursday).

In this article, I'll outline critical fantasy football context for the seventh glorious football Thursday of 2025.

(The stats below are from PFF, NFLfastR, rbsdm.com, RotoViz, FantasyLabs, Fantasy Life, Fantasy Points, ESPN, FTN, and NFL Next Gen).

PROE data is available for subscribers at the bottom of the post.

Steelers at Bengals, 8:15 PM

Steelers

Implied Team Total: 25

Back in Week 2, Aaron Rodgers had a rough game against a high-end Seahawks pass rush. But, other than that, he's been pretty impressive this year.

Rodgers' success rate isn't great; he ranks just QB28. But he's a respectable QB16 in EPA per game. At the very least, Rodgers looks plenty capable of taking care of business in soft matchups.

Rodgers now gets one of the softest matchups in the NFL.

The Bengals have an anemic pass rush, and one that will very likely be without star EDGE Trey Hendrickson this week. Among EDGE players, Hendrickson ranks 12th in pass rush win rate and seventh in pass rush grade.

The Steelers haven't allowed much pressure this year, but that's largely a result of Aaron Rodgers' lightning-quick 2.51-second time to throw—the second fastest in the league to only Dillon Gabriel (2.47 seconds).

The Steelers' offensive line has actually been pretty weak in pass protection, especially LT Broderick Jones; RT Troy Fautanu and RG Mason McCormick have also had letdowns. Hendrickson's absence is a big deal, letting the Steelers' offensive line off the hook.

Fortunately for the Bengals, they are pretty healthy on the backend. They've just been very poor in coverage. Not the best silver lining in the world, but the Bengals have to take what they can get at this point.

After a slow start to the year, DK Metcalf is coming off two very strong games. And his Week 6 receiving line (4/95/1) was actually delivered in a Metcalf-ian way. With frustratingly low aDOTs for much of the year, he was a productive deep threat against the Browns.

With Calvin Austin out last week, Metcalf was the only Steelers WR to see 50%+ route participation. Scotty Miller (48%) was next highest, but wasn't targeted. Roman Wilson was at just 28%, while Ben Skowronek was at just 13%.

That leaves Metcalf as the clearest of clear-cut No. 1 WRs. With a very soft matchup on tap, he's a WR2.

I'm maintaining a little bit of caution on Metcalf... because I don't trust the Steelers to take full advantage of this passing matchup.

There's a reason that non-Metcalf Steelers WRs saw so few routes last week—the Steelers gave significant snaps to three different tight ends.

Against the Browns, Jonnu Smith logged 71% route participation, Darnell Washington logged 61%, and Pat Freiermuth logged 45%. Hilariously, Connor Heyward scored the only TD among Steelers tight ends, on his only route of the game.

With Washington making this a three-way split, Smith is just a low-end TE2.

If you made me pick between Washington and Pat Freiermuth right now, I'd easily take Washington. Washington has a better per-route profile and has 64% and 61% route participation over the last two games, with Freiermuth at just 32% and 45%.

If you made me pick between Washington and Smith... I'd take Smith, but just barely. Washington is in the low-end TE2 mix.

More importantly, the Steelers' tight end deployment has been a clear sign of intent—they are looking to run the ball.

Relative to expectations, the Steelers have been pretty neutral over their last two games, but they have had very low expected pass rates of just 44% and 58%. So, they've been able to play in line with game script and still pound the rock.

As 5.5-point road favorites here, Pittsburgh should be in positive game script. And they'll be going against a very weak Bengals run defense. We know how Arthur Smith wants to attack this week.

For fantasy, the issue is that Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell look to be in a committee. And this isn't a clean two-way split. Kaleb Johnson mixed in with Warren out in Week 4, and then saw a similar workload out of the Steelers' Week 5 bye.

Gainwell returned to a similar role to what he had in Weeks 1-2.

Warren actually had his weakest usage of the entire season last week.

Warren has played well this season. He has elite marks in success rate, elusive rating, and YPRR. It's not like he's about to get phased out.

However, Gainwell has also played well this year and is likely to continue to see enough work to hamper Warren.

Still, we can expect the Steelers to look to establish the run here. Even if game script is unexpectedly tilted to the pass, that's good for both backs, who are both flashing as receivers.

In the most likely script, receiving work will be more limited, but there should be decent rushing workloads for both backs—Warren profiles as a low-end RB2 with Gainwell as an RB4.

Bengals

Implied Team Total: 19.5

With less than a week to prepare, Joe Flacco started against the Packers last week and turned in his strongest performance of the season.

In fact, Flacco was more efficient than Jake Browning was in any game for the Bengals this year.

For the season, Flacco remains concerningly inefficient. Only Cam Ward and JJ McCarthy have been worse in EPA per game; only Ward and Dillon Gabriel have been worse in success rate.

The good news is that with Flacco under center, Zac Taylor has been very willing to call pass plays—just like he was with Burrow and Browning at QB.

Against the Packers, the Bengals "only" had a 3% PROE, but anytime a team passes 73% of the time, it's fair to call them pass-heavy. They were also aggressively pass-heavy on 1st down.

The Bengals now face a Steelers defense that teams have increasingly gone pass-heavy against. Granted, the Patriots, Vikings, and Browns all posted high pass rates against Pittsburgh in losses. This effect is likely driven more by game script than by matchup. But the Bengals are 5.5-point home underdogs—they are expected to be in negative script.

The Bengals are also playing fast. With 29.6 seconds per situation-neutral play, they have the 6th-fastest pace in the league. Their 69% pass rate is also the highest in the NFL.

So, volume is the good news. The bad news... is pass protection.

The Bengals should have all five starters healthy on the offensive line this week. But that doesn't change the fact that their pass protection is a significant liability regardless of the matchup. And this is a tough matchup.

TJ Watt is Pittsburgh's big-name pass rusher. But Nick Herbig is their actual star. Among EDGE players, Herbig ranks first in pass rush win rate and 10th in pass rush grade. Watt still matters, though. He ranks fifth in pass rush grade.

The Steelers also have additional threats. EDGE Alex Highsmith ranks 16th in pass rush grade. DT Cam Heyward ranks 16th in pass rush grade and 18th in pass rush win rate.

The Bengals just faced the Packers' pass rush last week, a difficult test. But the Steelers look even more formidable.

If playing Bengals, you are betting on volume. Ja'Marr Chase is the only realistic way to bet on efficiency. He's talented enough to overcome almost anything. Over the last two weeks, Chase has totaled 16 receptions for 204 yards and three TDs. He's unreal.

This is yet another arduous setup, but Chase remains a WR1.

The Bengals switched things up at QB last week, but Tee Higgins was in the exact same role he's been in all season.

Generally, Flacco should help Higgins produce on his downfield routes. With Browning, he was the NFL's most expensive clear-out route WR.

But in this matchup, it's hard to get excited about Higgins, given how quickly the Steelers' pass rush is likely to get to Flacco. Higgins is a WR3.

Mike Gesicki will miss this game and ran only one route last week. And yet, Noah Fant still saw just 48% route participation.

Tanner Hudson will also miss this game with a concussion, though. Hudson saw 35% route participation last week.

But don't get your hopes up too high about a true full-time role for Fant. Drew Sample saw 22% route participation last week and is likely to pick up the slack as the traditional inline tight end.

Of the two, Fant is clearly the better receiving play. It's just that Sample will likely eat into his playing time, limiting Fant to a low-end TE2.

In the backfield, the efficiency concerns don't look quite as dire. The Steelers haven't been great against the run.

However, with the passing game likely to struggle here, the rushing game has a very low floor as well. And for Chase Brown, volume looks like a genuine concern. Brown is coming off his worst usage of the year.