Cincinnati Bengals: Silver Lining of the A.J. Green Injury

It looks as if the injury suffered by A.J. Green on the first day of Bengals training camp will keep the seven time Pro Bowler on the sidelines for one or more regular season games, but the team can withstand this.

Losing a player of Green’s caliber for any length of time is never easy for a team to overcome. Cincinnati has become somewhat used to life without its best player in recent years. Even so, the results have not been pretty. The team went 1-7 without Green last year. However, there are some reasons why the Bengals may fare better this time around.

Timing

There is no way to paint Green’s injury as anything but a bad thing. However, Cincinnati is not losing him in the middle of the regular season like in past years. Successfully adjusting on the fly midseason to losing a top flight player is next to impossible.

Training camp and the preseason is the time of year where teams work out the kinks. Make no mistake, Green going down is a heck of a kink, but Zac Taylor and his staff have time to combat it and over a month before the games count. Green getting hurt when he did also means he should be back and able to contribute for a good portion of the regular season.

Tyler Boyd Just Got Paid for a Reason

Tyler Boyd had a breakout year in 2018 with 76 catches. This was good enough to earn him a four year $43 million contract extension. Otherwise, this would have been the final year of his deal. The Bengals obviously believe he can be an elite pass catcher on a consistent basis. I share that belief.

Boyd needs to come up big in Green’s absence once again this year. An offseason that seemed to be geared towards building the offense around running back Joe Mixon may also help Cincinnati during life without Green.