Bengals' big offseason thing: What will the offense look like?
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz looks at the one big thing for Cincinnati's offseason - including some likely shakeups on offense with Tee Higgins receiving the franchise tag, and potentially causing the team to cut ties with Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd.
Video Transcript
JASON FITZ: It's time to take a look at one big thing facing the Cincinnati Bengals this offseason, and it's what's that offense going to look like next year. Brian Callahan, offensive coordinator, has left to become the head coach of the Tennessee Titans. But above and beyond that, even by keeping the quarterbacks coach in place and making him the offensive coordinator, there's still going to be change in the weapons that are available. Tyler Boyd is likely to be playing somewhere else next year. Joe Mixon, very likely could end up being a cap casualty as well.
So now, you've got entirely new weapons all the way around this Bengals team that's supposed to be in the Super Bowl now window. Now, the other concern that has to be addressed here is the injury history of Joe Burrow. We can talk about the injuries being unrelated. We can say that nothing has anything to do with anything else. I would just ask-- do we have the same grace when we talk about injury issues with other quarterbacks on other teams? The answer is no. Injury prone is a nasty thing to say about anybody because the athlete usually doesn't have any say in what's happening to their body that's creating that issue.
But that doesn't change the reality for the Bengals. It feels like almost every year Joe Burrow is going to miss some time. How do you find a way to keep him upright? How do you find a way to keep him healthy? How do you find a way to try to keep your roster together when you're now starting to have to pay great players that you drafted that have turned out to be superstars in the NFL? These are all issues the Bengals thought they'd be facing, hopefully, with Super Bowls in their pocket. Instead, they've got to find a way to do all of this coming off a season where because their quarterback wasn't available due to injury, it was at the very least a disappointment.
The Bengals are supposed to be on the same plane as the Bills and the Chiefs. Joe Burrow is supposed to be one of the few quarterbacks in the NFL you can trust to take down Mahomes. If that's true, he may have to do that with less help at the wide receiver position and running back position than he's had any year in recent memory, and he's going to have to stay healthy to do it.
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