The Cincinnati Bengals avoided major injuries last season, which helped them reach the Super Bowl. If they want to make it back, they have to avoid the injury bug once again.
In the 2019 and 2020 seasons, the Cincinnati Bengals had a lot of bad injury luck. We saw how good this team can be when the majority of the roster remains healthy and that helped get the squad to the Super Bowl for the first time since the late 1980s.
If the Bengals want to return to the Super Bowl for the second straight season, these players cannot get injured. Joe Burrow is an obvious one so I took it a step further and excluded him because if he goes down, the team is obviously in trouble.
Here are four players not named Joe Burrow who the Bengals can absolutely not lose in the 2022 season.
All stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference
4. Ja’Marr Chase + either Tee Higgins or Tyler Boyd
If just one of the Bengals’ starting wide receivers, the offense would still be okay because the other two guys would step up. If two of them were to get injured, however, it’d change the offense substantially.
Ja’Marr Chase would be the biggest blow if he were to miss an extended period of time but if only he were to get injured, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd could provide solid weapons. If Chase and Higgins or Chase and Boyd were to miss several games, the offense will look different.
Yes, there’s still Joe Mixon and Hayden Hurst to fill the void but the receivers behind those three guys are a big huge step down from what Burrow is used to throwing to. Losing two starting receivers would be a terrible scenario for Cincinnati.