Bengals QB Joe Burrow triumphs over injuries vs. Ravens

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  • Ben Baby, ESPN staff writer7 November 2024 at 6:00 a.m. ET

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      Ben Baby covers the Cincinnati Bengals for ESPN. He joined the company in July 2019. Prior to ESPN, he worked for various newspapers in Texas, most recently at The Dallas Morning News, covering college sports. He provides daily coverage of the Bengals for ESPN.com while appearing on SportsCenter, ESPN’s NFL Shows and ESPN Radio programs. A native of Grapevine, Texas, he graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at Southern Methodist University and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

CINCINNATI — There were a few things on Joe Burrow’s mind in the hours leading up to a surgery that had many unknowns.

One of them was whether all passengers on planes had parachutes. When Jake Browning, the Cincinnati Bengals’ backup quarterback behind Burrow, texted Burrow good luck ahead of wrist surgery last November, Burrow responded by asking about evacuation methods for an emergency landing.

“That’s just the way he is,” Bengals receiver and longtime teammate Ja’Marr Chase said last December. “He just never thinks about ‘the moment’. He thinks about something else”.

But the second thought in his mind was more pressing. As someone who underwent surgery during his rookie year in 2020 when he tore ligaments in his right knee, Burrow knew one of the hardest parts wasn’t going under the knife, but the wait to start the recovery process.

“You’re just excited to get that process going,” Burrow told ESPN. “Because it doesn’t start until the surgery happens. Sometimes a month, sometimes six weeks after the surgery. Those weeks are always hard because you know what’s coming and it hasn’t started yet.”

On Thursday, Burrow will suit up under almost identical circumstances to when he suffered the injury last season – a Thursday night road game against the Baltimore Ravens. That night last November, Burrow was tackled and broke a wrist ligament in his throwing hand. The specific injury was one that no NFL quarterback is known to have experienced. His return has been one that not everyone expected.

Burrow has not only recovered, but is playing the best ball of his career. Through nine weeks, he is second in QBR at 76.3, behind the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson at 77.3.

Burrow has been at his best at a time when the Bengals have never needed it more. Cincinnati (4-5) is trying to get back to .500 and is struggling to not miss the playoffs in consecutive seasons; The Bengals have reached the postseason every time Burrow has finished a season healthy. And from going down last season to now, he’s rebuilt himself into a franchise quarterback.

Even that was never a sure thing.

“You can throw all you want, but you’re not really sure how it’s going to work until you get out there,” Burrow told ESPN. “It’s with any injury when you come back from it. That’s part of it.”

THE BENGALS WERE trailing the Ravens 7-3 late in the second quarter on November 17, when Burrow threw a short pass to Joe Mixon, who ran in from 4 yards out for a touchdown. As Mixon crossed the goal line, Burrow bent his right wrist, which he landed on during the previous play.

It was the last game of Burrows’ season. He briefly went to the locker room before returning to the sideline, attempting to throw a few passes, dropping into a deep squat and cringing.

Burrow suffered a ruptured scapholunate ligament injury in his wrist. Eleven days after the injury, he went to Pennsylvania to have an operation performed by Dr. Thomas Graham, team sources confirmed to ESPN.

There was no plan for an estimated time of return. Unlike his previous injuries that set precedent for quarterbacks — an ACL and MCL injury that ended his year in 2020, a ruptured appendix in 2022, a strained right calf in early 2023 — this was unique.

Around the locker room, Burrow found comfort in teammates recovering from the same ligament injury.

When Bengals linebacker Joe Bachie was at Michigan State, he broke a wrist bone in 2016 and then blew out his scapholunate ligament against Michigan in 2017. He said he doesn’t remember what happened in the game other than his fingers going numb. He had a cast on his wrist, played the rest of the season and then had surgery.

Bachie said he has no wrist pain after the procedure. However, he has a limited range of motion compared to his other wrist, something Burrow hasn’t had to deal with.

“Me and him do different jobs,” Bachie told ESPN. “I can’t bend it all the way. But I’m in no pain.”

Dr. Steve K. Lee, chief of the hand and upper extremity service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, said approaches to repair the scapholunate ligament vary among orthopedic surgeries. Once completed, Lee told ESPN, concerns about recovery include having the same speed and accuracy as before the procedure, risk of re-injury and arthritis in what Lee called the “keystone” ligament in the wrist.

“If it falls apart, the wrist mechanics are thrown off, kind of like an unbalanced washing machine,” Lee told ESPN.

Burrow worked to be ready for the upcoming season. By the time the Bengals started their offseason program in April, Burrow was in uniform and throwing and staying on track for the next step in his recovery process.

THE PROCESS OF throwing again started with throwing little medicine balls, Burrow told ESPN in May. When the offseason program started, Burrow was less than five months removed from surgery.

And while Burrow attended, his workload had to be managed. When Burrow didn’t throw a day, Bengals coach Zac Taylor revealed it was a mandated rest day to protect Burrow from doing too much.

Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher recently told ESPN that the coaching staff installed this year’s offense around a throwing boundary for Burrow, making sure things went as smoothly as possible.

“Maybe he goes through individual drills and then he doesn’t throw a ball,” Pitcher said.

As the team wrapped up mandatory minicamp, Burrow stood next to Chase, who was a limited participant due to a contract dispute, and flexed his wrist as a spectator. To help improve his wrist dexterity, Burrow began watching YouTube videos to learn how to play the piano.

It was his idea. Finally, he recorded a few songs. The series of notes that serve as the intro and main melody to Kanye West’s “Homecoming” became one of his favorites to play.

In his final press conference of the off-season before the players left for the summer break, Burrow acknowledged that the accumulation of injuries during his career made him contemplate his “football mortality”.

“They stack up and you keep thinking about how you can get better from them,” Burrow said on June 11, “how you can come back as an improved player when maybe you’re not getting the reps you were on due to your injuries.

“It’s always a challenge, it always is. But I’m built for it.”

IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING the injuries he’s suffered in his five NFL seasons, Burrow has never missed Week 1. The openings haven’t always been pretty, like in 2022, when he threw four interceptions in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers just weeks after being hospitalized for emergency appendectomy.

In this season’s opener against the New England Patriots, Burrow had six passing attempts of 10 or more yards, according to ESPN Research. The 16-10 loss was one of the biggest upsets in recent years.

The next week, the Bengals faced Kansas City, a team Cincinnati played in the AFC Championship Game following the 2021 and 2022 seasons. The Bengals won the first meeting to go to the Super Bowl, losing to the Los Angeles Rams, and lost the following year in a field goal with three seconds left.

It was only Week 2, but after what happened the week before, Burrow knew what was required.

“(The Patriots game) ended up being a little tighter than I expected and it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to,” Burrow said. “After that, there wasn’t really any other option but to go out and let it rip.”

Burrow had 258 yards and two touchdowns in a game the Bengals lost on a walk-off field goal. Since then, Burrow has shown his pre-injury form and is starting to hit new career highs.

So far, that hasn’t translated into consistent winning. But if there’s any hope the Bengals can turn it around and make a run, it starts with the 2020 first overall pick, who threw five touchdown passes in a sweep of the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday.

“I know we have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL,” Bengals special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons said. “That’s always a good place to start.”

He doesn’t play the piano as much as he used to, nor has he bent his wrist as much. After a career stretch as good as any, Burrow no longer contemplates his footballing mortality.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Burrow said as he sat down at his locker before looking up and smiling a wide grin. “We’re back.”