It was announced on Friday afternoon that Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow will miss the remainder of the season due to the right wrist injury sustained in Thursday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens. The team has a mini bye week from playing in the early game and will likely work out a free-agent quarterback or two ahead of their next game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 12. For now, though, Jake Browning is Cincinnati’s starting quarterback.
There is an investigation ongoing by the NFL looking at when exactly the injury to the wrist on his throwing arm was hurt. It was expected to be from a big hit from Jadeveon Clowney Thursday night, but then reports dropped of the Bengals’ social media team posting and deleting a video of Burrow getting off the plane with what appeared to be a brace of sorts on his wrist. It was initially thought to be a sprained wrist, but the MRI confirmed on Friday that he tore a ligament in his wrist that will need surgery to fix.
The Bengals sit at .500 with a 5-5 record but are in last place in the AFC North. If the playoffs ended this second, they would hold the No. 10 seed and would miss the AFC playoffs. Head coach Zac Taylor expressed optimism that the team isn’t done yet, but you can’t ignore how big of a blow this is to their season.
Barring bringing in someone familiar with the playbook, Browning should start the team’s Week 12 matchup against the Steelers. They bring forth one of the better defenses in the league, and it will be an incredibly tough task, despite the week and a half of preparation he will have. Cincinnati’s offense is used to being well-rounded, but even Joe Mixon, Ja’Marr Chase and a healthy Tee Higgins may not be able to have enough of an impact to get this team to the postseason.
As far as free agent quarterbacks go, Cincinnati has plenty of options. They could hit up Trevor Siemian, AJ McCarron, Brandon Allen, Ryan Finley or Jeff Driskel, who are all familiar with the team and have at least started a game with them or been on the practice squad within the last eight years. The Bengals could try and pull Matt Ryan away from his CBS analyst job or could go with Nick Foles, both of whom would bring ample experience to the offense. The Cleveland Browns lost Deshaun Watson for the season, and worked out veteran QB Joe Flacco on Friday. If he doesn’t sign, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him stick around Ohio and work out for Cincinnati.