The Cincinnati Bengals are already down one star wide receiver after they ruled out Tee Higgins with an injury earlier in the week. But the big question mark leading up to their home game against the Houston Texans today was surrounding the health of Ja’Marr Chase, who has been dealing with a bad back all week.
Chase sustained the injury last week during the Bengals’ victory over the Buffalo Bills. His MRI came back negative and he was able to log two limited practice sessions to end this week’s preparation, but there was still some major concern surrounding his status entering today’s game.
The NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport had described him as “50/50 at best” early this morning, but it appears as though he’s shown enough during pregame warmups to give it a go.
At the moment, reports indicate that Chase will be active.
With Higgins out, Chase may be called upon to shoulder a heavy load — if he can manage. If he’s unable to play the entire 60 minutes, it’ll be a lot of Tyler Boyd, Andrei Iosivas, and Trenton Irwin on the receiving end of Joe Burrow’s passes.
