The Cincinnati Bengals host the Chicago Bears on Sunday in a battle of teams looking to stay in the thick of the playoff race. Both teams enter the game with injury issues, as the Bengals have Joe Flacco dealing with an AC joint sprain while the Bears will be without D’Andre Swift and several pieces of their secondary. Given the respective strengths and weaknesses of these teams, it wouldn’t be surprising if we saw some offensive fireworks. 

Chicago is coming off a disappointing loss to the Baltimore Ravens last week. The Bears had forced 15 turnovers over their previous four games, but were unable to take the ball away from Tyler Huntley and Co. and got run over by Derrick Henry. At the same time, their offense piled up some yards but was unable to convert them into points, settling too often for field goals rather than touchdowns when getting into scoring range. The loss dropped them to 4-3 after they had won four consecutive games following a winless start to the Ben Johnson era. Now, they’re looking to get back on track.

Cincinnati lost a barn-burner of a game last week to the New York Jets. The Bengals gave up an incredible 502 yards of offense to New York, marking the second time this year the defense has been hit up for half-a-thousand yards or more. The Bengals have now lost five of their last six games since starting the season 2-0, and need to capture a win here to remain connected in the AFC North race before it gets narrowed down to just Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Which of these two teams will bounce back and get back in the win column? We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, keep it locked to our live blog throughout the afternoon as we update you with stats, scores and highlights. 

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