How bad is the Joe Burrow injury for the Bengals? Very, very bad

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For most of the Zac Taylor Era, the Bengals have gotten out of the gates slowly, allowing the rest of the league an early headstart. This year marks the very first time under Taylor — who has been head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals since 2019 — that the team has started 2-0. And based on what happened during Sunday’s game against Jacksonville, that second number is likely to grow a whole lot faster than the first.

Joe Burrow left the game with an uncertain-at-the-time injury, one that upon later examination proved to be turf toe. That name sounds a whole lot more benign than the injury itself; depending on the severity of the injury and the necessity of surgery, Burrow is likely to be out until Christmas. That’s devastating on multiple levels, both to the Bengals’ chances as a whole and to the arc of the oft-injured Burrow’s career in particular.

The Bengals’ next four games are on the road against Minnesota (more on them in a moment) and Denver, at home against Detroit, and at Green Bay. With all due respect to Jake Browning, that’s a rough stretch, and four straight losses aren’t hard to fathom.

Even with Burrow, the Bengals struggled to get free of Cleveland and Jacksonville — two teams who are not exactly the Bills and Eagles — so without him, the Bengals’ problems are multiplying. There’s zero margin for error in the AFC right now, and the Bengals just lost whatever edge they might have had record-wise over the rest of the field.

As for Burrow himself, this now marks the third of his six seasons where he’ll miss significant time due to injury. His rookie year ended prematurely when he shredded the ligaments in his knee in a game against the then-Washington Football Team. The very next year, he won Comeback Player of the Year and led the Bengals all the way to the Super Bowl.

Two years later, 11 games into the 2023 season, he tore a ligament in his wrist and missed the rest of the year. He returned last season and again won the Comeback Player of the Year, although the Bengals’ miserable defense held the team back from a playoff berth.

Now, this. A third season-wrecking injury on a third different part of his body. It’s cruel, really, for Burrow, and deeply unfortunate for anyone who enjoys quarterback play at the absolute elite level. When he’s in, Burrow is one of the best of his, or any, era — he already holds the career mark for completion percentage, for instance.

With this injury, though, he’ll now miss more than a full season’s worth of games in his first six years in the league. It’s a devastating blow for Burrow, the Bengals, their fans, and the game itself.

If nothing else, though, we know this: Burrow is a lock for Comeback Player of the Year in 2026.

(Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports illustration)

Back for the 2025 season, Asked & Answered offers up some key questions and resolving others. We start with a question of schedules …

Asked: What do we really know about anyone this early in the season?

It’s understandable that the early weeks of the NFL lead us into wild overreactions. Two games are the very definition of “small sample size” for a league whose entire year-long schedule is a small sample size. So we make wild assumptions after Week 1 (The Lions are cooked!) that don’t hold for Week 2 (The Lions are probably gonna be OK). It’s a combination of everyone’s overexuberance at having football back, a need (for the media) to fill air/text space and draw eyeballs, and the fact that preseason is now basically two-hand touch compared to the olden days. (There used to be six preseason games. Six! Now everyone who’s anyone in the league just sits out all three.)

So the basic lesson to take from this is that with a few obvious exceptions on either ends of the spectrum, teams at this point are probably neither quite as good as you hoped, or as bad as you feared. Everyone’s taken their first two hits, and the way that they respond will determine the course of their season.

Of course, that won’t stop us from making sweeping statements of our own, like …

Asked: Are the Chiefs really in trouble?

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, but there’s plenty of time to recover. Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have built up a Brady-and-Belichick-esque air of invincibility around themselves, and not without justification. You win three Super Bowls and reach two more, you get a whole lot of room for error.

That said … every reign eventually ends, and just because the Patriots dominated for two decades doesn’t mean the next dynasty will. The Chiefs of 2025 are looking a step slower, a touch creakier, a bit more error-prone than the world champions of years past. Granted, Kansas City drew the incredibly tough opening slate of the Chargers and Eagles back-to-back, but still … you can’t see Mahomes overthrowing receivers or Travis Kelce misplaying passes and think that all is right in K.C. Buffalo and Baltimore are relentless, Denver and the Chargers are ascendant, and there’s not much room at the top in the AFC.

Two of Kansas City’s next four games are against Baltimore and Detroit, with the Giants and Jaguars sprinkled in between. We’ll know a lot more about this team after that. (See? Don’t panic this early!)

Answered: The Vikings are not their 2024 selves

The 2024 Minnesota Vikings were one of those pleasant surprises that the NFL reveals every couple years, a 14-win team built out of castoff parts, underused assets and undervalued role players and staff. Yes, they flamed out in the postseason, but they got there on a rail, a feat they’d struggled to achieve in recent years.

So when Minnesota decided to go in a different direction at quarterback and focus on second-year-but-really-rookie J.J. McCarthy, well, eyebrows raised. When McCarthy led the Vikings to a dramatic comeback win over Chicago last week with a three-touchdown fourth quarter, the eyebrows lowered and the fists raised. And when McCarthy and the Vikings could muster zero real offense against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday night, fists lowered and shoulders shrugged. There’s a lot of movement going on in the Vikings fanbase, is what we’re saying, and not enough of it is that overhead Skol clapping. McCarthy has played exactly one good quarter out of eight so far, and frustration is already evident.

With an AFC North tour of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Cleveland followed by an arduous run of Philadelphia, the Chargers, Detroit and Baltimore, McCarthy has little time to get comfortable before hell arrives. And if the Vikings continue to struggle, those raised fists are going to be holding pitchforks.

Asked: Will the Tush Push get the heave-ho?

The NFL world is of two minds about the Tush Push. If you’ve got the personnel to pull it off, you want to keep it in play; it’s not your job to let other, less innovative teams catch up. If you’ve fallen victim to the Tush Push, you want the messy, indelicate mauling of NFL legalities gone once and for all. Sunday might have given the doubters and the critics the upper cheek in this fight, though. Philadelphia’s use of the Tush Push in the Eagles’ win over Cincinnati drew the ire of everyone from Andy Reid to Tom Brady to NFL rules analysts. And the fact that refs missed a clear false start on a play that’s very difficult to officiate to begin with is going to be a factor in upcoming discussions. So, shove while you can, Eagles. The end is probably near.

Answered: Cam Bynum celebrations are the best celebrations

Clown on the NFL all you want for being the No Fun League, but at least non-taunting celebrations aren’t drawing flags anymore. For the second straight week, Indy’s Cam Bynum snared an interception, and for the second straight week, he offered up a legendary celebration. This one paid tribute to the Colts’ mascot Blue and his habit of gettin’ the belly rollin’:

That followed Week 1’s celebration of … what would you call this? Flipped-over crab? Frog on a griddle?

Whatever, it was perfect. And the Colts are 2-0, so whatever Bynum is doing, it sure ain’t hurting the team.

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/how-bad-is-the-joe-burrow-injury-for-the-bengals-very-very-bad-142110439.html