Those in favor of their quarterbacks playing limited to zero snaps in the preseason can just point to this one Joe Burrow play to defend their logic.
The Bengals’ star quarterback put himself in peril and surely had anyone rooting for the team holding their breath Monday night when he attempted to evade the Washington pass rush and instead had three defenders sack him during a 31-17 road win.
Burrow did not suffer an injury and only played three drives, but many on social media pointed to the play as an unnecessary risk.
“Probably don’t want to see Joe Burrow doing this in a preseason game…,” The 33rd Team’s Ari Meirov tweeted. “Or in any game, for that matter.”
Teams have different philosophies when it comes to how many preseason reps their quarterbacks should take since that invites potential disaster.
Buffalo’s Josh Allen, Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson have not played one snap, while Patrick Mahomes has thrown one pass in a two-play drive.
Cincinnati coach Zac Taylor has instead been utilizing his starters for roughly one quarter in each game in hopes of helping the team start faster.
The Bengals have lost their first two games in each of the past two seasons.
This has led to Burrow playing two series in the preseason opener and another three Monday night, completing 18 of 24 passes with three touchdowns across those five series.
Burrow has certainly looked sharp this preseason, but that one play Monday showed why playing a quarterback for so long can be tempting fate.
On a 3rd-and-12 at his own 17-yard line in a 7-7 game, Burrow took off to the left before circling back toward his own end zone.
He attempted to evade a defender around the five-yard line but could not, and three Washington defenders delivered a hard sack.
Even ESPN announcer Joe Buck could not believe what happened.
“Go down, Joe, it’s August,” Buck said.
Taylor acknowledged that he would have preferred not to see his quarterback take that hit, and Burrow labeled it as a “bad sack” during an in-game interview with ESPN.
Burrow completed 9 of 14 passes for 62 yards with one touchdown pass Monday.
“It’s one of those things for him, that’s what preseason football’s for. Do I love seeing that? No, I don’t,” Taylor said. “But, at the same time, he’s out there learning what he can and can’t do and we’ve seen him get out of that stuff before and that’s why he’s playing in the preseason, for a chance to feel what it’s like to feel in a game and there’s times where he gets out of that and gets a big play and times where we’re in a tough spot at the two-yard line. He gets a chance to feel all that and learn from it.
“I think it was three good series that we’ll continue to learn from.”
Those on social media, though, sided more with Buck.
Barstool Sports captioned a video of the play: “It’s only preseason and the Bengals O-line already has Joe Burrow in hell.”
“Joe Burrow. Sir. It’s August,” tweeted CBS’ Jordan Dajani.
The Bengals have one more preseason game on Aug. 23 against the Colts before opening the season on the road against the Joe Flacco-led Browns on Sept. 7.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
