Williamson: Bengals' offense in shambles without A.J. Green

Matt Williamson is a former scout for the Cleveland Browns, and spent the last 10 years at ESPN as a scout and co-host of "The Football Today Podcast."

The Bengals are in huge trouble.

While they are only a game and a half behind Pittsburgh and Baltimore in the mediocre AFC North, it sounds as though they will be without A.J. Green for the foreseeable future, and quite possibly for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, Giovani Bernard is officially done for the year with a torn ACL.

This is a 3-6-1 team whose defense has underperformed basically for the entire season. Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap have been the only consistent contributors on that side of the ball. Their special teams have been below average and for a team that stayed very healthy by NFL standards last year, 2016 has been an injury plagued disaster. And that was even before losing Green and Bernard.

They also faced a brutal schedule early in the year, falling into a hole that they are unlikely to crawl out of.

On offense, Andy Dalton has quietly played very well.

Being without Tyler Eifert for much of the season hurt this passing game a great deal with Marvin Jones in Detroit and Mohamed Sanu in Atlanta. Tyler Boyd and Brandon LaFell have been adequate, but best suited as reserve or rotational wide receivers. Much more is required of them now.

In many ways, Cincinnati’s offense went as Green went.

In the Bengals wins - and one tie - this year, Green averaged about 10 catches and just over an amazing 160 receiving yards per game. In Cincinnati’s six losses, he averaged just 4.5 receptions and 53.5 yards per game.

Green is clearly one of the NFL’s most important and indispensable offensive players, and now one of the premier wide receivers in the game is gone.

The Bengals win/loss history with Green out of the lineup is abysmal.

Obviously every defense Cincinnati faces, game plans around Green. He sees extra attention from opposing secondaries as much as any receiver in football. Now, much of that attention will be focused on Eifert, and Jeremy Hill as a runner.

A well above average runner, Bernard is also currently the Bengals’ second leading receiver behind Green. So the Bengals have now lost their top two receiving options.

Well, Eifert is really Cincinnati’s number two guy. But you get the idea.

Eifert is now going to have to be the top dog, and LaFell and Boyd will have to take the touches/receptions that once went to Eifert and Bernard. That is just an awful situation.

While Dalton has played quite well this year, his offensive line is noticeably worse than in recent seasons.

As they have been in past years, the Bengals’ line is weak at center where Russell Bodine resides. But the huge problem has been right tackle where 2015 first-round pick Cedric Ogbuehi has not acclimated well as a starter. Andrew Whitworth remains a vastly underrated superstar at left tackle, but Ogbuehi and Bodine simply allow far too much pressure. Overall, the Bengals' pass protection has been among the worst in the league. And while that makes Dalton’s performance all that much more impressive, without Green in the equation, expect defenses to send more five and six man pressures at Cincinnati going forward.

So maybe the Bengals will just have to lean on Hill and the run game more, right?

Sure, that sounds feasible on paper but again; expect more stacked boxes going forward. Cincinnati’s run blocking is clearly superior to the pass protection, but the sledding is going to be much more difficult for that group without Green in the fold.

Hill is averaging an impressive 4.6 yards every time he totes the rock this year. However, if you eliminate the 74-yard touchdown run against the hapless Browns, he averages just under 4.1 per carry.

The reality is that Hill runs like a league-average starting running back, but by no means is a superstar and the remaining weeks ahead are only going to get more difficult because of the loss of Green, as well as two upcoming games against Baltimore, the NFL’s best run defense.

Working in Cincinnati’s favor is that no team in the AFC North is above .500 and four of the Bengals remaining games are within the division.

Maybe their defense can step up huge down the stretch and carry them narrowly into the post season. Maybe Green returns sooner than what is feared.

Or, maybe, the Bengals are cooked.

Bet on the latter.