In the meantime, Taylor said the Bengals “have a ton of confidence” in backup Jake Browning. Cincinnati will still be looking to add a third quarterback to the room, in addition to practice squad quarterback Brett Rypien, but the plan is to run with Browning, who is 4-3 as a starter and won four of the last six games in his first NFL action in 2023 when Burrow suffered a season-ending wrist injury.
“There’s always some form of adversity you’re gonna face, and it’s, how do you respond to it?” Taylor said. “And so again, there’s not a lot we can do right now for Joe, you know, other than I feel terrible for him because he’s put in all the work, and so for him to have to go through this is the worst part of it, but as a football team, we just got to continue to move forward, and that’s what these guys are going to do.”
Taylor and the Bengals have moved on to preparations for the next game Sunday at the Minnesota Vikings. However, at least one player was still beating himself up Monday about his role in the play that caused the injury to Burrow.
Burrow suffered the toe injury while taking a sack from Jaguars defensive end Arik Armstead, who brought him down by grabbing the left foot. Bengals right guard Dalton Risner, who was signed 10 days before the season opener, said he missed the block to let Armstead free.
“I have a lot of respect for Joe Burrow and the player that he is, and the game of football is imperfect, and you lose a guy like that, and it’s devastating ... but it’s my job to protect him, and I wasn’t at my best on that play,” Risner said. “So, you know, part of it, I take fault on. Of course, I know I didn’t actually injure the guy, but my job is to protect him, and I don’t think I did a good enough job on that plan to keep him safe and healthy.”
Questions linger externally as to whether the organization did enough this offseason to protect Burrow, who is now dealing with a significant injury for the third time in his six-year NFL career.
Armstead’s sack was the second one Burrow took in a game where he dropped back 15 times and took hits on 33 percent of them.
“If people are looking at the offensive line as the No. 1 reason in that thing, that was an all-11 people... so especially early on, there’s some things that we got to correct at every position to be able to all be on the same page,” Taylor said. “It is simple as that, and that’s coaching, that’s the receivers, that’s the tight ends, that’s the running backs, and that’s the offensive line and the quarterback all working in unison with each other. So again, it’s the line always takes all the all the blame for it. I’ve got confidence in those guys, and we’re going to continue to get their best going forward.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Taylor said if people want to place the blame on him for the style of play putting Burrow more at risk, he will take that on his shoulders because it’s a system that has proven successful in winning a lot of games and bringing the Bengals two AFC North titles, an AFC Championship and a Super Bowl appearance.
Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said if he had a crystal ball to predict Burrow would get injured on the play, the play call would have been different, but “it’s about as standard of a football play as you’re going to have.”
“It’s a pick-a-side read,” Pitcher said. “He’s on the right side. He didn’t love the relationship with the corner and the receiver, and that’s going to happen sometimes. And so when that happens, you’re faced with the decision, do I throw the ball anyway and have to maybe target the ball in a spot that might put the ball at risk or I target in a spot where I don’t think it’s going to get completed or do I pull the ball down and try to find a secondary answer? And both of those are viable options. He chose the second one. There’s times where he has chosen the first one, it’s a football play. It’s a really unfortunate outcome to a standard football play. I wish it didn’t happen. I feel terrible for Joe. It’s a football play.”
It’s part of Burrow’s DNA to do whatever he can to extend a play, which Pitcher said “is something that makes him great.” It’s tough to tell a great quarterback to turn it on one play and off another.
The Bengals also are built to try to take advantage of explosive weapons, which perhaps makes it riskier for the quarterback trying to make plays.
“We’ve devoted resources to what we makes us one of, we believe the most explosive, best passing offenses in football, and I think over the course of time we’ve shown that we at least belong in that conversation,” Pitcher said. “There is risk. No matter what you choose to do, you are going to incur risk. We have special skill players. We want to accentuate those skill players. … How do we try to do it in such a way that we’re limiting the amount of times that Joe’s potentially going to get hit? But he plays quarterback in the NFL. It’s a quick-game call. Those things are going to happen. And so there’s no one decision solves all. Everything costs something.
“So we constantly think about these things and again, I hate that we’re in this spot, and we will always evaluate and reevaluate and do it over and over again, but we can only make the decisions in the moment that we feel give us the best chance to win.”
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