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.
This was how Twitter reacted to the apparent Burrow wrist brace footage
Why did the Bengals not have to report that Joe Burrow had a brace on his wrist? @NFL ?
— Bobby Stroupe (@bobbystroupe) November 17, 2023
Guessing the Bengals might get an inquiry from the NFL office about Joe Burrow's injury status, considering he was not on the report and was wearing some type of brace coming off the team plane.
— Chris Pika (@BlogAndTackle) November 17, 2023
Joe burrow got caught on tape with a brace on his throwing hand and now going out with same injury. Bengals need to lose draft picks for disclosing an injury
— Scott Campbell (@ScottCampbell13) November 17, 2023
Just watched a halftime show. Fitzpatrick referenced Joe Burrow wearing a brace on his right wrist yet no one on the panel questioned why he wasn’t on the injury report. You don’t wear a brace if you’re not injured. Bengals gonna get fined.
— Matt Wintner (@MattWintner) November 17, 2023
As said today, you don’t delete a tweet unless you’re hiding something https://t.co/8Q16KmiX6H
— Tone Digs (@ToneDigz) November 17, 2023
The league wants integrity…the league wants an injury report…the league wants an injury report that can be trusted
— Todd Fuhrman (@ToddFuhrman) November 17, 2023
Not on the injury report. Bengals got some explaining to do! https://t.co/4zvL722IbH
— Michael Fabiano (@Michael_Fabiano) November 17, 2023
We’ll at least the NFL does not embrace sports betting. 😏#integrity https://t.co/uUm0CyMANF
— Andrew Brandt (@AndrewBrandt) November 17, 2023
Of course, player well-being is the most important thing, and sports betting should never take a superior role.
That said, purposely failing to report any player injury prior to a game is a violation of NFL policy, and is also a dastardly thing to do to people laying down legal… https://t.co/L5E2UoMTBO
— Dontay Atkinson (@DonAtkinsonNFL) November 17, 2023
I respect that KOC over does it on the injury report. This is shady by the Bengals. https://t.co/Kdr6KZpybC
— Purple FTW! Podcast (@PurpleForTheWin) November 17, 2023
Hope y’all are ready for a very hefty fine for hiding an obvious injury from your injury report @Bengals https://t.co/G6GsrH8Xth
— 🗣🎙‼️ (@LanceTHESPOKEN) November 17, 2023
The Bengals are definitely going to have to answer some questions from the league. https://t.co/OM52Y7V00s
— David Niinemets (@DaveNiinemets) November 17, 2023
