No Joe: QB Burrow Won't Play for Bengals at Washington
A visit to Washington is generally a lovely experience.
Unless you're Joe Burrow.
The last time Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow rolled into FedExField to play the Washington Football Team, he was rolled out on a medical cart, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft having sustained a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee in a November meeting with the WFT. He finished his rookie season having completed 65 percent of his passes for 2,688 yards, with a TD/interception ratio of 13/5. ... and a vow to return stronger than ever.
That will surely happen for the Bengals but it won't happen on Friday night as the Bengals return to Washington for Week 2 of the NFL preseason.
Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor has suggested that Burrow might play at some point during the exhibition season - Week 3 of the preseason is of course the league's traditional "dress rehearsal'' time - and Burrow has expressed a desire to get into a game before the real stuff starts happening in September.
“I’d like to get out there and feel the rush a couple times,” Burrow said recently.
READ MORE: QB Kyle Allen & Washington Key To Win Vs. Bengals
Cincinnati and Washington will kick off at 8 p.m. ET at FedExField, but this game will be about issues other than star QBs. (Washington's Kyle Allen, for instance, said he is planning on playing.) That doesn't take away from where the Bengals think they are headed with Burrow - he's got a stated goal of leading Cincy "on a playoff run'' this year - and it doesn't take away from the WFT's respect for the QB.
After all, as Washington coach Ron Rivera said before that fateful November game, if in the 2020 Draft, Cincy (with the No. 1 pick) would've taken defensive end Chase Young, the WFT at No. 2 would've selected Burrow.
"We feel like championships are won by playing good defense," Rivera said then. "We felt pretty strongly about him (Young). The only other option we felt was a viable one for us was Burrow and obviously he was taken by Cincinnati. We think Joe is the full package. We really do. We think Chase is the full package. Depending on what Cincinnati did, that's what we were going to do.''
But now what's done is done. Both the Bengals and Washington franchises are pleased ... and looking forward to getting through tonight as they advance toward goals led, respectively, by Burrow and Young.
