Did the Cincinnati Bengals attempt to cover up Joe Burrow’s hand injury before their matchup against the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday Night Football?
It sure seems that way.
And they might have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for — well, them posting a pregame video of their star quarterback in a hand brace.
For the uninitiated, the Bengals’ official X (formerly Twitter) account posted a video on Wednesday showing the team arriving in Baltimore ahead of their primetime matchup. The seemingly innocuous post, however, was subsequently deleted, but not before many eagle-eyed viewers noticed that Burrow was wearing some sort of brace around his hand/thumb despite not being listed on the team’s official injury report.
In possibly related news, Joe Burrow appeared to be wearing a brace for his wrist when he got off the plane in Baltimore on Wednesday #Bengals #Ravens https://t.co/6uBQ1qHOOM pic.twitter.com/TL4MU98fEz
— John Breech (@johnbreech) November 17, 2023
Despite the Bengals’ best effort to delete the apparent evidence, footage of the 26-year-old signal-caller wearing the contraption was also captured by WCPO’s Caleb Noe.
https://twitter.com/CalebNoeTV/status/1724988859170111555
The story might have stopped there if not for Burrow leaving the game in the second quarter with an apparent hand injury, which Bengals head coach Zac Taylor referred to as a sprained wrist following the Ravens’ 34-20 game. Asked by reporters if his starting quarterback had suffered an injury prior to Thursday’s game, Taylor replied, “Not that I am aware of.”
Nevertheless, Burrow’s injury on Thursday brought increased scrutiny to the pregame videos that clearly showed him wearing some sort of contraption that indicated an injury. While the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner was obviously healthy enough to start, if he was dealing with some sort of injury, it should have been listed on the team’s pregame injury report.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the NFL is investigating the matter, which could result in the Bengals being fined or even losing a draft pick if it’s found they didn’t comply with the injury report. This isn’t necessarily an uncommon occurrence — just last month, the NFL looked into why the Atlanta Falcons didn’t list running back Bijan Robinson on their injury report despite the rookie running back playing limited snaps against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers due to an apparent illness.
Maybe there’s a good explanation for why Burrow was wearing a brace despite not actually being injured. But if that’s the case, then it’s quite the coincidence that he later suffered an injury to the exact same hand, and it also begs the question why the Bengals deleted their own video in the first place.
