The Bungles Strike Again

Joe Burrow was the savior for the Bengals, but their ineptitude allowed him to get hurt

by Brendan Smith, Sports O’Clock Writing Team Member

Joe Burrow was carted off in the third quarter after suffering a devastating knee injury (photo credits: CBS Sports)

Cincinnati Bengals rookie quarterback Joe Burrow was on pace for a historic rookie season. Going into the third quarter of Sunday’s game between the Bengals and the Washington Football Team, Burrow led the NFL in passing attempts and completions. Now, Burrow will not be able to throw another pass this season.

Burrow was diagnosed with a torn ACL, MCL and other structural damage after having his leg hit by two Football Team defenders. Burrow has a long road to recovery ahead of him, but his mentality and toughness proves that he will be able to overcome his injury and come back better than ever next season. The NFL is a better league with Joe Burrow in it.

Unfortunately, myself and many other fans and analysts predicted Burrow would get hurt at some point this season. That is a mark of criticism directed at head coach Zac Taylor and the Bengals front office. The “Bungles” set Burrow up to fail by not addressing key roster issues, such as the horrible offensive line.

Last season, the Bengals had the third-worst offensive line in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus. The O-line allowed quarterbacks Andy Dalton and Ryan Finley to be sacked a combined 48 times. Allowing a rookie quarterback to be sacked 48 times is not a recipe for team success in the NFL, and it was nearly a guarantee that the Bengals would address the line in either the draft or free agency.

The Bengals surprised everyone and did very little to change the offensive line setup. Outside of getting 2019 first round pick Jonah Williams back from injury, no significant changes were made. The lack of attention to the line had been evident through the first 10 games: Burrow was sacked 32 times and hit a league-high 72 times. Any quarterback who is subjected to that much punishment is likely to be injured, and that was the case on Sunday.

Apart from the offensive line, the game plans for Burrow each week were borderline atrocious. Burrow averaged around 40 pass attempts per game, which meant the game plans allowed for Burrow to be subjected to a high volume of hits. A rookie quarterback needs to have a proper blend of running and passing plays to allow them to get comfortable in an NFL offense, and the Bengals did not provide that to Burrow.

The Bengals will now turn to Finley and Brandon Allen at quarterback for the rest of the season; that essentially means the season is over and the Bengals will get a high draft pick. Hopefully the Bengals learned a lesson from this: the Bengals did not understand the importance of building a quality roster around Burrow, and now they must make improving the offensive line their number one priority. If they fail to do that for a second consecutive offseason, Burrow’s NFL career will not last long. And that would be a shame.

(Statistics taken from Pro-Football-Reference.com and https://www.pff.com)

(All photos are cited properly. No copyright infringement intended.)