By; Head NFL Writer; The Sports Experience
Sunday, against the Washington Football Team, Joe Burrow, the rookie drafted by the Bengals first overall in the 2020 NFL draft, injured his knee badly early in the third quarter after a low hit by Montez Sweat, who was falling backwards and landed on Joe Burrow’s knee. Soon after, Joe Burrow tweeted out, “Thanks for all the love. Can’t get rid of me that easy. See ya next year.” This prediction turned out to be true, with news coming out shortly after that Burrow had indeed suffered a season ending ACL tear in his knee. But that’s not all. According to Ian Rapoport, “Joe Burrow tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee, an MRI showed.”
This news is beyond sad, especially considering the fact that Joe Burrow was the most promising rookie quarterback so far, with him and Justin Herbert looking like front runners for the Rookie of the Year Award. But now, that dream is dashed. The knee injury will bring an end to a promising rookie season. Additionally, it looks like even more damage might have been done to the structural part of Joe Burrow’s knee, putting his 2021 season in jeopardy.
To put it briefly, Joe Burrow suffered an ACL and MCL tear to his left leg, along with additional damage, causing him to miss the rest of his rookie 2020 season, and perhaps part of 2021.
This is very disappointing. For the Bengals, this means that essentially their season is over. The main goal of the Cincinnati Bengals was to develop Joe Burrow and get him as many snaps as possible. The Bengals were never going to make it to the playoffs, and they knew that. Their only goal was to develop their young rookie quarterback Joe Burrow, and now that Joe Burrow is gone, so is the motivation to try this year for the Bengals.
And a lot of this is on the Bengals. The Bengals had opportunities to help Burrow, to build pieces around him, but they didn’t. Consistently, the Bengals offensive line has been atrocious, and it finally happened at the line’s expense. The thing everyone has been shouting for weeks has happened. Every week, everybody would say, “Man, Joe Burrow is great, but he sure is under pressure a lot. The Bengals need to get a better offensive line!” And the Bengals didn’t. The Bengals offensive line has given up as of Week 11, the second most sacks in the National Football League, with only the Eagles giving up more sacks.
The one aspect that was out of Joe Burrow’s control was the pieces and weapons around him. And unfortunately for him, that ended up costing him and the Bengals organization for this season, and perhaps next season.