The Cincinnati Bengals lost 22-17 to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 4 and dropped to 2-2. The scoreboard was the smaller problem. They lost both Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins along the way.
Chase left in the first half with a concussion and was ruled out at the start of the third quarter after three catches for 27 yards. Higgins went down with an adductor injury late, after a monster day.
What is confirmed and what is not
Chase is in the concussion protocol. The Bengals travel to Miami in Week 5, and as CBS Sports pointed out, it is a tight turnaround to clear protocol in time. Cincinnati has not announced his status for that game.
Higgins had caught 11 of 16 targets for 157 yards before the injury, per NBC Sports, and he played only one more snap after the adductor issue. One outlet put his potential absence at two to three weeks, but that is an outside estimate, not a team timeline. Cincinnati has not given one, and severity is unclear.
The depth chart is a mess
This is the part that should worry Bengals fans. Yahoo Sports reported Cincinnati is already without Andrei Iosivas, who is on injured reserve, and Colbie Young, who has a knee injury. Add Chase and Higgins and the receiving room is mostly gone.
Zac Taylor shrugged it off in the way coaches do. “Just got to make it work. No one wants to hear any reason why that wouldn’t work,” he said. Mitchell Tinsley and Dohnte Meyers are expected to see more targets.
Those are not the names that scare a defense. Without two elite targets, every coverage plan gets easier, and the offense loses the quick-strike ability that bailed this team out of tough games for years.
What it does to the season
At 2-2 the Bengals are in the middle of the pack with no margin. A bad Week 5 in Miami, with one or both stars out, could push them to 2-3, and that hole gets deeper fast in a tough division.
My take: if the absences are short, one or two games, the season survives. If Higgins really is out for a month and Chase misses time, Cincinnati is in trouble. The defense already missed tackles in the closing minutes against Jacksonville and was down safeties Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger, so there is no cushion elsewhere.
The smart play is caution with Chase’s head. A concussion is not something to rush through for a 2-3 team. The next injury report will settle a lot, and until then Cincinnati’s season hangs on two medical updates.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.