Bengals’ top offensive targets listed as questionable on Friday, with Ted Karras leaning on a lifelong Bears tie

The Bengals’ game-day picture for Sunday in Miami begins with uncertainty around two of Cincinnati’s most important offensive pieces. In the team’s Friday “Quick Hits,” the Bengals listed Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins as questionable, a status that could shape how the Bengals approach practice windows and Sunday’s early game plan.

Chase and Higgins’ availability matters because they are central to Cincinnati’s ability to create explosive plays and sustained drives. When elite receivers are limited in the week, play-calling often tightens toward options that can get separation faster or match up with a more conservative tempo, particularly early when both teams are trying to establish their rhythm.

Sunday’s kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m., and the game will air locally on FOX19 in Cincinnati. Even without additional details in the team’s Friday notes, a questionable designation is more than bookkeeping. It indicates that the Bengals are weighing each player’s readiness and how their snaps and roles might look if they are cleared, limited, or held back.

The Bengals’ Friday notes also added a personal, football-credentialed perspective from Ted Karras, the club’s center. Karras is a boyhood Bears fan, and in “Quick Hits” he reflected on Mike Ditka, a figure who remains a touchstone for generations of Chicago supporters.

Karras’ connection to Ditka underscores a broader truth about NFL Sundays: players bring their own football histories into the building. Ditka’s legacy, especially to fans who grew up with a particular brand of toughness, offers context for how current players interpret the stakes of a tough opponent and a high-pressure environment.

While injury reports set the practical questions, they rarely settle the narrative questions that coaches and players face each week. If Chase and Higgins are able to play, the Bengals can lean back toward their preferred distribution of targets. If one or both are limited or ruled out, Cincinnati will have to adjust roles and routes around the players available.

For fans watching Sunday in Miami, the immediate watch items are straightforward: each player’s final status after the Bengals’ final internal evaluations, and how Cincinnati’s offensive tempo and personnel looks in the first half. The injury designation is the key headline, but the game plan will reveal whether the Bengals are fully leaning into their top pass-catching threats or building a different path to production.