This is a really worrying trend for Joey-B. The Cincinnati Bengals are now officially screwed for the rest of the season as Joe Burrow has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a torn hand ligament.
What a crap way to end a season.
Despite having a fantastic chance of making it out of the AFC and reaching a second Super Bowl appearance in three seasons, the Cincinnati Bengals are now looking at trying to break into the Top-10 picks of the 2024 draft as their season is completely over with Joe Burrow now out with a season-ending hand injury. And, to be honest, I’m a little fearful that Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ Super Bowl window might be slamming shut too.
First, before I get into the doom and gloom of my Super Bowl window predication for this team, let me just talk about how DEVESTATING this injury is for the Cincinnati Bengals. Not only have they lost the arguably 2nd or 3rd best QB in football to a season-ending, throwing hand injury with a division title win on the line, but they also have now blown the final season of Burrow’s rookie deal without a championship.
Seriously, Burrow being out is bad and having torn ligaments in his throwing hand is most definitely not a great thing, but now being burdened with a $275M deal that pretty much ensures the loss of Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd, D.J. Reader, Jonah Williams, Chidobe Awuzie, Akeem Davis-Gaither, Drew Sample, and nearly every other starting free agent this team has after the end of this season.
Obviously, the Bengals needed to give Burrow that massive deal as he MOST CERTAINLY has deserved that contract, but when you pay franchise QBs, you end up losing A LOT of the key pieces that helped develop that QB into a superstar. And that’s what is going to happen at the end of this season as the Bengals just simply won’t have the cap space to resign the starters and key role players I mentioned above.
Still, with the Bengals now 5-5 and a full three games (and down a game in the head-to-head matchups) against the Ravens (8-3), there’s pretty much no chance Jake Browning will be able to go under center and lead the Bengals to 6-straight wins (as that’s what they need to do to have a chance in the AFC North) AND be able to overcome the Steelers (6-3), Browns (6-3), Texans (5-4), Bills (5-5), Raiders (5-5), Chargers (4-5), and Colts (5-5) to just have A CHANCE at making one of the two final Wild Card spots.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned a few moments ago, the biggest takeaway I have from this injury is that the Bengals Super Bowl window might be FAR shorter than anyone could have guessed after Joe Burrow exploded onto the scene as Burrow has the worst trait an athlete can have: being injury prone.
Ever since joining the NFL in 2020 after he was drafted 1st overall by the Bengals, he’s torn his ACL, his MCL, his PCL, and meniscus (all in 2020), he dislocated his finger (2021), he strained his knee (2022), he sprained his MCL (2022), he had a bad calf strain (2023), and now he’s torn ligaments in his hand (2023).
That’s 9 injuries in three years!!! (Though, technically only 5 if you count all those knee tears as one whole injury, but 5 major injuries in 3 years is still REALLY bad!)
And his injury history looks even worse when you see that he suffered a chest fracture in 2020 and a hand fracture in 2017 during his days in college. If the Bengals don’t DRAMATICALLY improve their offensive line by the time Joe Burrow comes back next season, then I don’t see Burrow lasting 10 years in the league if he continues to get injured like this. Or at the very least be the same, dominating, ice-cold player we know him to be today.
I really fear that Joe Burrow is going to end up like one of the Top-2 draft picks in 2014: Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III.
Whether Burrow maintains his excellence through his terrible injuries but is forced to retire early (Luck), or he declines drastically in his performance in skillset due to the numerous injuries but can play as a backup for a decent amount of time (RGIII), Joe Burrow will not be able to lead the Bengals to Super Bowl glory if he continues to take these hits and rack up these injuries at the rate he has since his college days.
He will break sooner rather than later…and so will the Bengals franchise when that day comes if they don’t bubble wrap him in protection SOON!!!
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