The Cincinnati Bengals have an incredibly difficult schedule in 2019, in large part due to a Week 1 road encounter with the Seattle Seahawks.
Monday, those Seahawks lost a major part of their defense with lineman Jarran Reed receiving a six-game suspension for a violation of the league’s personal conduct policy.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport first reported the news, which stems from an incident in April of 2017.
Reed, a second-round pick in 2016, had 13.5 sacks on his career and had 10.5 of those last season alone. One of Seattle’s weaknesses this offseason was interior line depth, so the team now has to turn to unprovens like Poona Ford and otherwise a rotation.
On paper, this makes life easier on the Bengals while they start the Zac Taylor era in hostile territory. The offensive line is dealing with life without first-round tackle Jonah Williams, the absence of the now-retired Clint Boling and hoping Billy Price can play well at center and Bobby Hart can revive his career on the right edge.
The Bengals still don’t start training camp for a handful of days, but it doesn’t hurt to get some good news about an opponent after all of the adversity chasing them into the camp opener in Dayton.
