At first glance, Joe Burrow seemingly just suffered a severe wrist injury on Thursday night. It’s an unfortunate break, to be sure, but it is also an all-too-common one from playing professional football. But there might be more than meets the eye with the Cincinnati Bengals’ talisman’s health and how the team can hold its own if he misses significant time.
At least in what the Bengals wanted everyone to know about Burrow.
You see, before Burrow even left the Bengals’ matchup with the Baltimore Ravens, footage shown on the Amazon Prime broadcast (courtesy of WCPO in Cincinnati) shows that the quarterback might have already been dealing with a wrist ailment before the game. While a little unclear at first, the clip features Burrow wearing some sort of brace on the same wrist that would eventually force him out. Hmm.
Lots of talk about a deleted #Bengals post, which showed Joe Burrow wearing some type of brace or sleeve on his right wrist.
🎥 Here’s video of Burrow getting off the team bus in Baltimore.
Not a perfectly clear shot, but you can definitely see it on his hand.@WCPO pic.twitter.com/XcqX6oMODA
— Caleb Noe (@CalebNoeTV) November 16, 2023
There’s one major problem here — Burrow wasn’t listed on the injury report by the Bengals. If proven that he already had a wrist ailment before Thursday Night Football — usually, you don’t wear braces on healthy wrists — this would be a demonstration of Cincinnati circumventing the NFL’s injury-reporting rules. It doesn’t help that the Bengals apparently deleted a Twitter post featuring the video, presumably because it gave away that Burrow wasn’t healthy and should’ve been on the injury report. Uh-oh.
Beyond following league rules, there could be a lot of underhanded ethics at play here. The league does not mandate that teams properly disclose injuries purely for competitive reasons. (Though that plays a huge role.) It is also a de facto message to fans who might travel to games and spend time and money, as well as fantasy football managers and bettors (especially as the NFL envelops itself more around sports betting) on what to watch for.
The Bengals might have to brace themselves for a requisite punishment because this doesn’t look good.