Ja’Marr Chase was back on the practice field Thursday, four days after a concussion knocked him out of Cincinnati’s 22-17 loss to Jacksonville. He is still in the concussion protocol and he still needs a full practice without symptoms to clear it, but he was out there in a helmet.
That is the news. Chase walked to the locker room Sunday after a hit that included a facemask grab and was ruled out for the rest of the game. Zac Taylor confirmed Monday that he remained in the protocol. Four days later he practiced, which is a meaningfully better place than anyone expected Cincinnati to be on a Thursday.
Chase Is Trending Up. Higgins Is Not.
Chase sat out Wednesday entirely, so Thursday’s work is the first real step. Clearing the protocol requires a full practice, and nobody in the organization has declared him available for Sunday. The direction of travel is what matters here, and it is pointed the right way.
Tee Higgins is a separate problem. He has not practiced at all this week with an adductor injury suffered in the fourth quarter against Jacksonville, and the Bengals have also listed a neck injury. On Thursday he started on the rehab field and did individual work without pads. That is not the Thursday of a receiver who plays three days later.
Losing Higgins stings more than people outside Ohio will admit. He leads Cincinnati in receptions with 25 and receiving yards with 401 through four games. Chase sits at 21 catches for 212 yards with three touchdowns, a split that says plenty about how defenses have chosen to spend their coverage.
Miami Is the Softest Landing Available
The Bengals are 2-2 and have dropped two in a row. They travel to play the 0-4 Dolphins on Sunday, October 11, as 6.5-point favorites. Miami has been the least threatening team in the league through a month.
A one-receiver version of this offense should still be enough. Joe Burrow said after the Jacksonville loss that he is open to throwing even more, which is a strange thing for a 2-2 team to volunteer and also a fair read on a roster where the passing game is the only reliable engine.
The bye changes the math, too. Cincinnati is off in Week 6, which means sitting either receiver this week buys close to three weeks of recovery instead of one. Against an 0-4 opponent, there is no version of this where rushing Higgins back on a soft-tissue injury makes sense.
The Call Is Simple
If Chase clears the protocol, he plays and the Bengals should win by double digits. If he does not clear by Saturday, hold him, take the bye, and trust Burrow to beat an 0-4 team with whatever receivers are healthy.
What the Bengals cannot do is treat this week as a referendum on the season. They are two games under where they should be with the best quarterback-receiver pairing in football, and the fix is not available in Miami. It arrives when both of these receivers are on the field at the same time again, and with Higgins yet to practice this week, that may not happen until after the bye.
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.