Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert missed his team’s Week 3 game against the Green Bay Packers with a back injury. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Eifert will miss even more time.
Bengals TE Tyler Eifert expected to miss multiple weeks while recovering from back injury, per source. No back surgery needed at this time.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 25, 2017
From an individual perspective, this is bad news for Eifert. Despite some of his past production, he has never played a full, 16-game season. In 2016, Eifert played in only eight games.
It’s certainly good news that he won’t require surgery, but Eifert’s loss will hurt the Bengals, as well. At 0-3, Cincinnati’s season is already very much hanging on by a thread.
While he didn’t do much in the season’s first two weeks (four receptions for 46 yards), Eifert has been a prominent red zone target in the past. Over the 2015 and 2016 seasons, he hauled in 18 touchdown passes. For a team already struggling mightily, replacing that kind of production will be an uphill task.