CINCINNATI – Bengals tackle Jake Fisher has an irregular heartbeat that will cause him to miss the rest of the season, coach Marvin Lewis disclosed Thursday.
Interviewed on Sirius XM, Lewis said Fisher will have a corrective medical procedure this week.
Lewis had declined to reveal Fisher's condition Wednesday when the club announced that it put the starting right tackle on the season-ending Reserve/Non-Football Illness list.
"It sounds worse than it probably is,” Lewis said during his Wednesday news conference.
Yet, it was serious enough that Fisher left Sunday’s game in the second quarter and went to a hospital for tests. He flew back from Jacksonville with the team after the game.
Marvin Lewis on Fisher's illness "sounds worse than it probably is". Doesn't think it is career threatening @WCPO pic.twitter.com/uFCedyS2MT
— Ken Broo (@kenbroo) November 8, 2017
“He’s (dealt with this) as we’ve been going through the season,” Lewis told reporters Monday. “It’s something that the doctors are monitoring very closely. Yesterday they thought they needed to pull him from the game and run some tests.”
With Fisher gone, the Bengals re-signed tackle Eric Winston, the NFL Players Association president who played here the past three seasons.
Fisher’s loss makes a bad situation with the offensive line that much worse. The Bengals are last in the NFL in rushing yards per game (72.2), and quarterback Andy Dalton has been sacked 24 times – sixth most in the league. The Bengals have been using a three-tackle rotation with Fisher, Cedric Ogbuehi and Andre Smith, and may add Winston to the mix when he's ready.
Winston, though, has not played this season. The Bengals cut the 11-year pro at the end of the preseason.
