It’s Thanksgiving Week, and for the second time in four seasons the holiday arrives when Bengals fans are too sick to digest our turkey and stuffing. The Ravens game last Thursday night was always going to be tough, but it turned into a nightmare when Joe Burrow, in the midst of throwing a touchdown pass (because Brrr), bent over in agony. A wrist ligament in his throwing hand had torn asunder, and just like that the game and the season were over.
Like 2020, when Joe tore his ACL against Washington, his campaign is stunted a little more than halfway through. It was another season-ending injury sustained in a stadium in Maryland in Week 11. Hey, NFL, stop scheduling those, would ya?
The Bengals took a 10-7 lead on that play, a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. Naturally, they couldn’t hold it with backup Jake Browning under center. The final was 34-20, a result that dropped Cincinnati to 5-5 and would have put a division title likely out of reach even with Burrow still standing at the end.
There will be no threepeat atop the AFC North, something that still has yet to be achieved in the division’s near quarter-century existence. As I worried last week, the season did indeed come undone in four days, going back to the loss to Houston. Of course, I was talking just about the Bengals’ record, not losing their franchise player to injury.
So now what? The difference between this year and 2020, of course, is that when Burrow was a rookie the team was still rebuilding and going to be drafting high regardless of how well he played that initial, COVID-stricken season. This year’s edition, however, had championship aspirations. It’s the final year of the cheap portion of Burrow’s rookie contract, that all-important aspect in roster construction—and he didn’t finish half of those seasons. His cap hit doesn’t get massive until 2025, but it balloons to nearly $30 million next season (from just under $20 million this year), a key difference that could prevent Cincinnati from reloading as they need to for next year.
After coming as close as you possibly can without actually winning it all the last two seasons, this was supposed to be the “Kick the door down” year. That’s gone now, which is intensely frustrating. The overall meh-ness of this season’s AFC only adds to that anger.
We know there wasn’t any guarantee this Bengals team was going to win even with a healthy Burrow. The issues were obvious: a stop-and-start run game, an O-line that remains iffy in big spots, and occasional oddball game planning. But the main issue, on display again Thursday night, is the defense, supposedly a constant we can count on.
Any chance of an unlikely run to grab a (still attainable) wild card spot can’t happen with the unit playing as it has. They’re either last or next to last in the NFL in several “big/explosive play” stats and 31st in yards per pass allowed. Up front, Sam Hubbard is injured, Trey Hendrickson is hobbled, and the depth is wanting. Only D.J. Reader is playing to his standard. Linebackers Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt aren’t playing nearly as well as their price tags would indicate; in prior years, Pratt’s deflected pass Thursday night would become an interception, but this time it rebounded to Ravens wideout Nelson Agholor for a backbreaking touchdown. The young secondary is unsurprisingly missing the departed veteran safeties and feeling the inconsistency that comes with lack of experience. The Browns can justifiably ask its defense to carry a backup quarterback. Cincinnati right now? Not so much.
Fortunately, it’s Steelers Week, and if there is a bright spot it’s the fact that Pittsburgh can’t score. Things are so desperate in Steel Town they’ve actually fired a coach, offensive coordinator Matt Canada, in-season, which is something that never, ever happens under the Rooneys. That of course is bad news for us, as the standard development in these cases is a short-lived “Thank God he’s gone!” burst of success. So Jaylen Warren will be pounding away on the ground, George Pickens will be force-fed targets, and of course T. J. Watt will do what he usually does against Cincinnati, licking his chops at getting another crack at a backup QB after a no-show last week against the Browns. A home win was going to be tough against the Steelers with Burrow. Without him it will take a herculean effort.
So that brings us to Browning, the man now at the helm. The ritual is well known throughout the league: The starter goes down, and the backup gets his moment. There are profile stories written about his grit, his poise, and his stubborn tenacity to remain in the NFL despite the repeated humiliations. Teammates attest to his excellence behind the scenes and insist their goals remain there for the taking. Maybe, like Josh Dobbs or Gardner Minshew, he will have some moments of success, even win a game or two.
But the reality always comes to the fore. And in this case, it’s as stark as reality gets: One of the great players in the NFL is out, and no amount of grit or tenacity on the part of his backup is ever going to make up for that. Few teams are built so completely around the skill set of its star like the Bengals are with Burrow. Browning will be the player we expect, capable of moving the team in proscribed spurts, but not someone who will flower out of nowhere like a Brock Purdy.
The big question is: Do we even want him to? What is the more desirable outcome over the next two months—a gutty, ultimately fruitless push for a wild-card spot and, at best, a road loss in Baltimore or K.C. or Jacksonville, or skidding to a top 10 draft pick and the opportunity to add blue-chip talent at a position of need?
The schedule ahead is the toughest in the NFL by DVOA, though like everything else in this league, context is key. With a healthy Burrow, none of the remaining teams would appear too formidable—backup (Cleveland, Indianapolis, Minnesota) or poor (Pittsburgh x 2) QBs will be under center in five of the seven games to come. With the Bengals’ defense playing to the high standard we’ve come to expect, a rally isn’t out of the question.
But this could be a chance to restock the talent pool that is tough to come by when Burrow is playing and the team is drafting late. With so many quarterbacks coming out of college this year and so many teams in the market for a new signal-caller, a premier offensive tackle, edge rusher, cornerback, or wideout could well be there unexpectedly for Cincinnati to add. The aforementioned salary cap hit Burrow will vacuum up in coming seasons makes getting cheap young talent crucial, and this could be a shot at short-circuiting that process.
While that plan has a payoff well into the distance and would make the remainder of this season a dud, in the big picture it would probably be the better option—like when we got Ja’Marr Chase after Burrow’s knee injury, or when the 49ers got Nick Bosa at No. 2 overall after Jimmy Garoppolo got hurt in 2018; both Chase and Bosa reached the Super Bowl in their rookie years. Taking that logic to its natural conclusion, maybe it would have been better if Joe would have been lost for the season over the summer as we all feared in the first place. At least we would have been spared the two-month tease.…
On that note, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. Follow him on Twitter at @robwein. Listen to him on Mo Egger’s show on 1530AM every Thursday at 5:20 p.m.
Facebook Comments