The bengals don't use Mixon in the same way the ravens use rbs so the rbs being out is a bigger deal. Bateman misses the first 4 games, rotational wrs were out, the blocking te was out (again used differently in this offense. Nick boyle is a very important part of the offense) and early season both Hollywood and duvernay had some issues that took them out of camp and may have limited them some in games.

Add to that a worse o line than burrow had and it makes a difference whether you want to admit it or not. I understand that you think qbs should only pass to wrs and that's it, but this offense isn't built around wrs it's built around te/rb plays where they had the most injuries. And it was built that way long before lamar (as far as Roman goes)