A matchup down the stretch for the Chicago Bears just got far more interesting.

In Week 9, the Bears will make the trip to Cincinnati to face Joe Burrow’s Bengals — only this time, Burrow will likely not be playing.

ESPN senior NFL insider Adam Schefter reported early Monday morning the two-time Pro Bowl quarterback will need toe surgery that will keep him out of action for at least three months. Burrow suffered a Grade 3 toe sprain, known as “turf toe,” when he was sacked in the second quarter of the Bengals’ Week 2 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The recovery timeline would place Burrow’s return to the Bengals in mid-December — long after the Bears’ Nov. 2 meeting with Cincinnati.

Week 9 will mark the first meeting between the two teams since Week 2 of the 2021 season, when the Matt Nagy-led Bears managed a 20-17 win behind just 83 combined passing yards from Andy Dalton and Justin Fields. Then-rookie Fields took over in the second half for the veteran Dalton when the latter exited the game with a knee injury. On the other side, Burrow went 19-for-30 with two touchdowns but also threw three interceptions to a relentless Bears defensive unit.

This year, both teams are in very different situations, and the way things will look come November is even more up in the air following Burrow’s injury.

The Bengals are now 2-0 for the first time since 2018, helped in part by backup quarterback Jake Browning, who propelled Cincinnati after Burrow’s exit with 241 passing yards and two touchdowns. But Browning did still throw three interceptions, and the numbers for a Burrow-less Cincinnati offense perhaps tell the story: With Burrow, they average 25.3 points per game compared to 19.9 without him.

Head coach Ben Johnson’s Bears are 0-2 and have yet to truly find their footing on either side of the ball. While their young offensive talent, like quarterback Caleb Williams (471 yds, 3 TD, 1 INT) and wide receiver Rome Odunze (13 rec, 165 yds, 3 TD), have shown flashes of brilliance through two games, there’s still a whole lot that Johnson and his coordinators need to straighten out.

The Bears’ defense has struggled — that was obvious in Sunday’s performance, when they allowed 52 points to the Detroit Lions. They’ve allowed an NFL second-worst 9.9 yards per passing attempt and a fifth-worst 5.3 yards per carry across the two losses.

But they’ve also missed their top two defensive backs for most of that span — cornerback Kyler Gordon (hamstring) was Pro Football Focus’ 11th-highest graded corner in the NFL in 2024 but hasn’t played either of the opening two games of the season. Two-time Pro Bowler Jaylon Johnson (groin) was PFF’s best NFC corner last season, but missed Week 1 with the injury before exiting Sunday’s game in the third quarter when he re-aggravated the issue that kept him sidelined throughout preseason.

Now that Johnson has been ruled out indefinitely, the Week 9 outlook for both the Bears and Bengals is murky. The Bears will face the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints at home and the Las Vegas Raiders, the Washington Commanders and the Baltimore Ravens on the road before the trip to Cincinnati.