Bengals QB Joe Burrow triumphs over injury against Ravens

CINCINNATI – In the hours before a surgery where there were many unknowns, a few things were running through Joe Burrow's mind.

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

“That’s exactly how he is,” Bengals receiver and longtime teammate Ja’Marr Chase said last December. “He just never thinks about 'right now.'” He thinks about something else.

But the other thought in his mind was more pressing. As someone who underwent surgery to tear ligaments in his right knee during his rookie year in 2020, Burrow knew the hardest part wasn't going under the knife, but waiting for it until the recovery process began.

“They're just excited to get this process started,” Burrow told ESPN. “Because it only starts after the operation. Sometimes a month, sometimes six weeks after surgery. These weeks are always hard because you know what’s coming and it hasn’t started yet.”

On Thursday, Burrow will play in much the same circumstances as when he suffered the injury last season – a Thursday night road game against the Baltimore Ravens. That night last November, Burrow was tackled and tore the wrist ligament in his throwing hand. No NFL quarterback is known to have suffered a specific injury. His return was one that not everyone expected.

Not only has Burrow recovered, but he's playing the best ball of his career. Through nine weeks, he ranks 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 fighting to avoid missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons; The Bengals have reached the postseason every time Burrow has finished a season healthy. And from his decline last season to today, he has developed into a franchise quarterback.

Even that was never a sure thing.

“You can throw anything you want, but you're not really sure how it's going to work until you get out there,” Burrow told ESPN. “It’s like that with every 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, Burrow threw a short pass to Joe Mixon, who ran 4 yards out for a touchdown. As Mixon crossed the goal line, Burrow flexed his right wrist, where he had landed on the previous play.

That was the final game of Burrow's season. He briefly went to the locker room before returning to the sideline, attempting to throw a few passes, crouching low and wincing.

Burrow suffered a broken scapholunate ligament in his wrist. Eleven days after the injury, he traveled to Pennsylvania to see Dr. Thomas Graham will undergo surgery, team sources confirmed to ESPN.

There was no blueprint for an expected return date. Unlike his previous injuries, which were unprecedented for quarterbacks — an ACL and MCL injury that ended his year in 2020, a ruptured appendix in 2022, a right calf strain early in 2023 — this was unique.

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

A look at what Joe Burrow is dealing with, which the team says is a right wrist injury: pic.twitter.com/nOW3qR0RhR

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 17, 2023

While playing at Michigan State, Bengals linebacker Joe Bachie broke his wrist in 2016 and ruptured his scapholunate ligament in the 2017 game against Michigan. He said he couldn't remember what happened in the game except that his fingers went numb. He wore a cast on his wrist, played the rest of the season and then underwent surgery.

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

“Me and him do different jobs,” Bachie told ESPN. “I can’t bend it all the way. But I don’t feel any pain.”

Dr. Steve K. Lee, chief of the hand and upper extremity division at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, said approaches to repairing the scapholunate ligament vary depending on the orthopedic surgery. Once the procedure is complete, Lee told ESPN, concerns about recovery include maintaining the same speed and accuracy as before the procedure, risk of re-injury, and arthritis in a ligament that Lee calls a “keystone.” -Band marked in the wrist.

“If that falls apart, the whole wrist mechanics go haywire, kind of like an unbalanced washing machine,” Lee told ESPN.

Burrow has put in a lot of work to be ready for the upcoming season. When the Bengals began their offseason program in April, Burrow was in uniform, pitching and staying on track for the next step in his recovery process.

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

And while Burrow attended, his workload had to be managed. When Burrow didn't pitch on a day, Bengals coach Zac Taylor announced it was a mandatory rest day to protect Burrow from doing too much.

Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher recently told ESPN that the coaching staff designed this year's offense around a throwing limit for Burrow, which ensured everything went as smoothly as possible.

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

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

That was his idea. Eventually he recorded a few songs. The sequence of notes that serves as the intro and main melody of Kanye West's “Homecoming” became one of his favorite plays.

In his final press conference of the offseason before the players went on summer break, Burrow admitted that the accumulation of injuries throughout his career had him thinking about his “football mortality.”

“They pile up, and you continue to think about how you can get better through it,” Burrow said on June 11, “how you can come back as a better player when maybe you're not getting the reps you had because of your injuries .”

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

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

In this season's opener against the New England Patriots, Burrow had six pass attempts with 10 or more air yards, according to ESPN Research. This 16:10 defeat was one of the biggest surprises in recent years.

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

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

“(The Patriots game) ended up being a little closer than I expected and didn’t go the way we wanted,” Burrow said. “After that there was really no other option than 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 the form he had before the injury and has begun to reach new career heights.

So far this hasn't resulted in consistent victory. But if there's any hope that the Bengals can turn things around and make a run, it starts with the first overall pick of 2020, who threw five touchdown passes in a win over 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 start.”

He doesn't play the piano as much as he used to, nor does he bend his wrist as much. After a career as good as any, Burrow no longer thinks about his football death.

“I don't know what to tell you,” Burrow said while sitting at his locker before looking up and flashing a wide grin. “We’re back.”