The Cincinnati Bengals will be without quarterback Joe Burrow for the rest of the season.
The team announced Friday afternoon that the Athens, Ohio native suffered a torn ligament in his right wrist during the Thursday night loss to Baltimore.
Head coach Zac Taylor said Burrow will likely need surgery to fix his throwing wrist.
Jake Browning is the backup quarterback for the Bengals and their next game is November 26th when they host Pittsburgh.
Burrow limped off the field late in the 27-24 loss that dropped the Bengals to 0-2 for the season, and afterwards confirmed that he had “just tweaked it a little bit again.”
Having missed most of the pre-season with the issue, Burrow finished 27-41 for 222 yards and two touchdowns, after passing for just 82 in last weekend’s season-opening loss to Cleveland.
The Bengals recovered from an 0-2 start last season to finish AFC North champions with a 12-4 record, and Burrow insists the team are capable of producing a similar turnaround.
The 26-year-old old has pinpointed getting off to quicker starts as a key factor in enabling the team’s offense to flourish.
“When your quarterback misses camp, it’s tough to start fast. It’s not an ideal situation,” Burrow said.
I’m still confident. I feel really confident in all the guys we have that in that room.
“We always want to start fast. Teams play us soft, keep everything in front.
“I think we did a good job of taking what they gave us today, but if you start fast, teams think twice about playing that way, so we’ve got to start fast.”
Along with Burrow, Bengals’ star receiver Ja’Marr Chase has made an underwhelming start to the season, hauling in just five receptions in each game, without scoring a touchdown.
Both of Burrow’s touchdown throws on Sunday went to his usual secondary option Tee Higgins, and the quarterback has admitted he needs to do more increase Chase’s output.
“I think we threw him (Chase) a couple today, we’ll go watch the film and check it out,” Burrow said. “It’s tough to tell from just sitting here and not having watched the tape. We’ll go back and re-evaluate that.
“We need to get him involved, he’s our best player on offense, so we need to find a way to get him off.”
Burrow will have extra time to recover for the Bengals Week Three fixture, which is a Monday Night Football clash with the Los Angeles, live on Sky Sports at 1:15am in the early hours of Tuesday, September 26.