Cincinnati announced the trade Tuesday afternoon while also making official the move to place Moss and tight end Erick All on injured reserve. Herbert will be available Thursday when the Bengals play the Baltimore Ravens in primetime on the road, but it’s unclear how big of a role he will have about 54 hours after arriving at Paycor Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.
Herbert was a sixth-round pick of the Bears in 2021. While he’s not been involved much in Chicago’s offense this year, he brings a career average of 4.8 yards per carry. He rushed for 611 yards and two touchdowns on 132 carries last year and had 11 explosive runs among those, giving him an 8.3 explosive percentage that ranked 15th among running backs with at least 100 carries.
“It’s something that we needed I think,” quarterback Joe Burrow said Tuesday afternoon. “I’m glad we went out and tried to get better. I’ve watched Khalil in the past, and I think he’ll be able to help us.”
Moss’ neck injury popped up late last week, and he was doubtful to play Sunday against the Raiders, then downgraded to out the morning of the game. Cincinnati leaned on Chase Brown to handle all of the carries out of the backfield, and he rushed for 120 yards on 27 carries but took a beating and was feeling sore after the game.
Taylor confirmed Brown had bruised his ribs, but he would have participated Monday if the Bengals had practiced, according to an estimated injury report.
After Brown, the Bengals’ only other running back options were Trayveon Williams and practice squad call-up Kendall Milton, an undrafted rookie out of the University of Georgia.
“With Zack’s injury, that’s tough,” Burrow said. “He was playing really well for us, and we haven’t been good enough this year to win the amount of games we want to, and to make a move like that and try to improve the team is positive.”
Herbert is known to be “good in pass protection,” Burrow said, which was an area Moss excelled; however, the quarterback acknowledged it will be difficult to get Herbert up to speed in that regard, particularly on third-down blitzes.
Burrow believes he could still take some carries off Brown’s load and maybe catch a couple passes. He had just met Herbert in the locker room moments before his press conference to preview Thursday’s game.
“Football is football for the most part,” Burrow said. “A couple new languages, but he’s right there next to me so I can tell him what to do when he’s out there. We’ll see how much he ends up playing, but I’m confident we can get him right.”
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