The Bengals Have One Receiver. The Depth Chart Confirms It.

Chase said he's fine. Let's take him at his word — and then look at what the roster says would happen if he weren't.

Last season, only one wide receiver in Cincinnati's entire offense produced meaningful playing time. One. The depth chart behind Tee Higgins is Kendric Pryor and a prayer. That's not a knock on Pryor; it's a structural fact. When Chase limped off the practice field on August 25, the franchise's entire offensive identity hobbled with him — not because of what the injury turned out to be, but because of what it revealed about the architecture underneath him.

Here's the number that matters: 125 catches, 1,412 yards, across 16 games last season. That production doesn't belong to a piece of an offense. It belongs to the offense. Tee Higgins contributed genuinely — 59 catches, 846 yards, 11 touchdowns is a legitimate supporting line — but Higgins is the second option on a team where the first option is irreplaceable. Chase Brown carried the ground game past a thousand rushing yards. Joe Burrow, in eight games, threw 17 touchdowns against five interceptions. The talent is real and concentrated. The concentration is the problem.

The front office spent the offseason addressing the side of the ball that bled them out in 2025. That was the right call — the defense's collapse erased what should have been a playoff-caliber offense, and acquisitions like Dexter Lawrence signal genuine intent to fix it. But the receiver depth was left essentially as-is, and the depth chart makes that choice visible in the starkest terms. Behind Higgins, no second wideout logged meaningful snaps last year. Behind the run game, Samaje Perine is 30 years old with no proven backup behind him. This is not a roster built to absorb a blow.

My read is that Cincinnati's front office made a calculated bet: the offense is so good that depth at receiver is a luxury problem, and the real fix was always the defense. That logic holds — right up until Chase's knee doesn't. The 2025 season already demonstrated what happens when this team's point production can't overcome its defensive failures. The 6-11 record masked an offense that deserved far better; the point differential suggested roughly five more wins than the team actually earned. That gap was a defensive problem. But a Chase injury converts it into an offensive one overnight, and there is no version of this roster that replicates his production from the players currently behind him.

Chase is questionable on the injury report right now. He says he's fine. The Bengals need him to be right about that every week for the next five months, because the depth chart has no answer if he isn't.