Bengals Send Clear Message About Joe Burrow’s Week 1 Status

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has not played yet this preseason, and he might not play in the team’s exhibition finale this weekend.

But it doesn’t seem like Bengals fans should be concerned about Burrow’s status for the season opener on September 12. The 2020 No. 1 overall pick is returning from a torn ACL and MCL, which cut short his record-setting rookie season.

Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor said that Burrow and center Trey Hopkins are on track to start in Week 1 despite not having dressed for a preseason game.

“They’ve shown us enough to know that they’re going to be ready to play,” Taylor said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It’s just a matter of what do we want do? Do we want to put those guys out there in a preseason game or just give them more rest and get them ready for the Minnesota game? We’ll take a couple more days before we make that decision since we’ve got a week here before that game.”

The fact both Burrow and Hopkins are projected to be ready for the first game is a testament to their respective recoveries. Burrow got hurt in Week 11 last fall while Hopkins tore his ACL in the Week 17 finale.

Burrow admitted that it took him some time to get back to “normal” in practice, but he reached that benchmark recently in training camp when he began having staff members crowd him in the pocket and use bags to simulate a pass rush.

“The one day where we started changing that, doing it differently, it felt back to normal very quickly,” Burrow told reporters last week. “We went out there early one day, started throwing bags at my legs. I’m sure everyone saw it, and I was back to normal after that.”

The Bengals will close out the preseason against the Miami Dolphins this Sunday and then open the 2021 season against the Minnesota Vikings on September 12.

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