Bengals’ Cedric Ogbuehi suffers toe injury; Jake Fisher moved to RT

When it rains, it pours in the Queen City.

It seems appropriate that Paul Brown Stadium was engulfed in rainfall Monday on a day when the team continued to deal with a slew of injuries. The latest is to starting right tackle Cedric Ogbuehi, who is dealing with a toe injury that could sideline him for multiple weeks.

Per Geoff Hobson:

With right tackle Cedric Ogbuehi not out there, Jake Fisher, who started at left tackle in place of Andrew Whitworth Friday, lined up at right tackle while Whitworth returned to the left side.

That could be a familiar sight for a while. It’s believed that Ogbuehi, in his first year starting, has a toe issue and may be out for at least couple of weeks after he and Fisher led the offense with 39 snaps each against the Vikings. It’s unclear if he’ll be ready for the Sept. 11 regular-season opener, so keeping a fourth tackle on the final 53-man roster is obviously still in the mix.

The fact that Ogbuehi never appeared to leave the game with an injury or even favor his toe suggests this may have been something brewing that got overworked. It may be a good thing if this was a prior injury that affected Ogbuehi during Friday's preseason opener, because he was pretty bad in that game.

Ogbuehi was pushed around with relative ease throughout the night and had mostly negative plays when it came to the run, whiffing badly on several plays enough that he made Russell Bodine look All-Pro.

Ogbuehi wasn't much better in the pass, but the Bengals' quick passing game helped negate that. This was to be the year Ogbuehi took over as the starting right tackle after Andre Smith signed with the Vikings.

The Bengals essentially handed the job to Ogbuehi with the only backup plan being either Jake Fisher or Eric Winston. Now that Ogbuehi is injured and may miss the season opener, moving Fisher to the right side in practice is the best move.

Winston just isn't going to get it done as a full-time starter, not to mention he's been working a lot as a backup guard, and Fisher should be about as ready as Ogbuehi for a breakout year.

After Ogbuehi was drafted out of Texas A&M in the first round of the 2015 draft, Fisher was taken in the second round out of Oregon. The expectation was Fisher would be the eventual left tackle with Ogbuehi manning the right side. However, Ogbuehi missed the entire 2015 offseason and the first two months of regular-season action while recovering from a torn ACL.

Meanwhile, Fisher practiced and played throughout the year, though in sparse snaps. He still has more experience in terms of practice reps and game reps than Ogbuehi, so it's not crazy to think Fisher may be a better option on the right side for now.

If Friday's performance was any indicator, Ogbuehi isn't ready for this role yet, or at least ready to just have it handed it to him like the Bengals wanted. This may have just become one of the hotter position battles to watch for the remainder of the preseason.