Cincinnati Bengals: 4 players the team can’t afford to lose to injury

The Cincinnati Bengals experienced their fair share of injuries in 2020 and they certainly hope that history doesn’t repeat itself in 2021. If the Bengals want any shot at competing in the AFC North, they need their star players and rising stars to stay healthy.

Joe Burrow was obviously the biggest injury and that came as a result of the poor play from the offensive line, which also experienced injuries in 2020. Joe Mixon was injured in Week 6 after rushing for over 400 yards in his first six games but the loss of him was certainly a big one though Samaje Perine did play well in his absence.

Tight end C.J. Uzomah was also injured early on, going down in Week 2 and not returning for the duration of the season. This paved the way for Drew Sample to step in and make a name for himself in the Bengals’ offense.

As I mentioned above, if Cincinnati wants to be relevant this year and compete for relevancy, they need these four players to stay healthy.

Cincinnati Bengals need Logan Wilson to stay healthy

Third-round rookie Logan Wilson was on his way to a nice season in 2020 until he was injured late in the year. The former Wyoming linebacker notched 33 tackles, two quarterback hits, and one sacks through 12 games as a rookie and the Bengals are hoping for big things from him this year.

Considering just how bad the Bengals’ run defense was a season ago (they allowed the fourth-most rushing yards), Wilson is definitely needed in this defense. The linebacker unit has to work out a lot of kinks moving forward and even though he’s young, Wilson is hopefully going to be the leader of that group.

Losing Wilson to injury would be terrible because it’d be his second injury in as many seasons and it’d also be a major blow to a linebacker group that desperately needs him to be on the field. If the Bengals want their run defense to be better in 2021, Wilson has to stay healthy.