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Ben Baby, ESPN writer
CINCINNATI — There were a couple of things on Joe Burrow’s mind in the hours before a surgery that had many unknowns.
One of them was whether all the passengers on the planes had parachutes. When Jake Browning, the Cincinnati Bengals’ backup quarterback behind Burrow, texted Burrow good luck before wrist surgery last November, Burrow responded with a question about evacuation methods for a emergency landing.
“That’s who he is,” Bengals receiver and longtime teammate Ja’Marr Chase said last December. “He just never thinks about ‘the moment’. He’s thinking about something else.”
But the other thought on his mind was more pressing. As someone who underwent surgery during his rookie year in 2020, when he tore ligaments in his right knee, Burrow knew one of the hardest parts wasn’t going under the knife but waiting to begin the recovery process. .
“You’re excited to get that process going,” Burrow told ESPN. “Because it doesn’t start until the surgery happens. Sometimes a month, sometimes six weeks after the surgery. Those weeks are always difficult because you know what’s coming and it hasn’t started yet.”
On Thursday, Burrow will suit up under almost identical circumstances as when he suffered the injury last season: a Thursday night road game against the Baltimore Ravens. That night last November, Burrow was tackled and tore a wrist ligament in his throwing hand. The specific injury was one that no NFL quarterback is known to have experienced. His return has been one that not everyone expected.
Burrow has not only recovered but is playing the best ball of his career. Through nine weeks, he ranks second in QBR with 76.3, behind the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson at 77.3.
Burrow has been at his best at a time when the Bengals have never needed him more. Cincinnati (4-5) is trying to get back to .500 and fighting to avoid missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons; The Bengals have made the postseason every time Burrow has finished a season healthy. And from the time he went down last season until now, he has rebuilt himself into a franchise quarterback.
Even that was never a sure thing.
“You can pitch all you want, but you’re not really sure how it’s going to work until you get out there,” Burrow told ESPN. “That happens with every injury when you recover from it. That’s part of it.”
THE BENGALS WERE They trailed the Ravens 7-3 late in the second quarter on November 17 when Burrow threw a short pass to Joe Mixon, who ran in from 4 yards out for a score. As Mixon crossed the goal line, Burrow flexed his right wrist, which he landed on during the previous play.
That was Burrow’s last play of the season. He briefly went to the locker room before returning to the bench, tried to throw a couple of passes, squatted down and grimaced.
Burrow suffered a torn scapholunate ligament in his wrist. Eleven days after the injury, he went to Pennsylvania to have surgery by Dr. Thomas Graham, team sources confirmed to ESPN.
There was no plan on the estimated time of return. Unlike his previous injuries that were unprecedented for quarterbacks (an ACL and MCL injury that ended his year in 2020, a ruptured appendix in 2022, a right calf strain in early 2023 ), this was unique.
In the locker room, Burrow found solace in his teammates who had recovered from the same ligament injury.
A look at what Joe Burrow is dealing with with what the team now says is a right wrist injury: pic.twitter.com/nOW3qR0RhR
—Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 17, 2023
When Bengals linebacker Joe Bachie was at Michigan State, he broke his wrist in 2016 and then blew out his scapholunate ligament against Michigan in 2017. He said he doesn’t remember what happened in the game, other than getting numbness the fingers. He wore a cast on his wrist, played the rest of the season and then had surgery.
Bachie said he feels no pain in his wrist after the procedure. However, it has a limited range of motion compared to his other wrist, something Burrow hasn’t had to deal with.
“He and I do different jobs,” Bachie told ESPN. “I can’t bend it all the way. But I don’t feel any pain.”
Dr. Steve K. Lee, chief of the hand and upper extremity service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, said approaches to repairing the scapholunate ligament vary among orthopedic surgeries. Once completed, Lee told ESPN, concerns about recovery include having the same speed and accuracy as before the procedure, the risk of re-injury and arthritis in a ligament Lee called the “key” ligament of the wrist.
“If that breaks down, the mechanics of the wrist go haywire, like an unbalanced washing machine,” Lee told ESPN.
Burrow went to work to get ready for next season. By the time the Bengals began their offseason program in April, Burrow was in uniform and throwing, staying on track for the next step in his recovery process.
THE PROCESS OF Throwing started again with small medicine balls, Burrow told ESPN in May. When the offseason program began, Burrow was less than five months removed from surgery.
And while Burrow was involved, his workload had to be managed. When Burrow didn’t pitch a day, Bengals coach Zac Taylor revealed it was a mandatory rest day to protect Burrow from doing too much.
Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher recently told ESPN that the coaching staff set up this year’s offense around a shot limit for Burrow, which ensured everything went as smoothly as possible.
“Maybe he does individual drills and then doesn’t throw the ball,” Pitcher said.
As the team concluded its mandatory minicamp, Burrow stood next to Chase, who participated on a limited basis due to a contract dispute, flexing his wrist as a spectator. To help improve his wrist’s dexterity, Burrow began watching YouTube videos to learn how to play the piano.
That was his idea. Finally, he learned a few songs. The string of notes that serve as the intro and main melody to Kanye West’s “Homecoming” became one of his favorites to play.
In his final press conference of the offseason, before the players left for summer break, Burrow acknowledged that the accumulation of injuries throughout his career made him reflect on his “football mortality.”
“They add up, and you keep thinking about how you can get better with them,” Burrow said June 11, “how you can come back as an improved player when maybe you’re not getting the reps you had because of your injuries.
“It’s always a challenge, it always is. But I’m built for it.”
IN SPITE OF EVERYONE Despite the injuries he has suffered in his five NFL seasons, Burrow has never missed Week 1. The first games have not always been pretty, such as in 2022, when he threw four interceptions in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers barely a few weeks after being hospitalized for an emergency. appendectomy.
In this season’s opener against the New England Patriots, Burrow had six pass attempts of 10 or more passing yards, according to ESPN Research. That 16-10 loss was one of the biggest upsets in recent years.
The following week, the Bengals faced Kansas City, a team Cincinnati played in the AFC Championship Game after the 2021 and 2022 seasons. The Bengals won the first meeting to go to the Super Bowl, where they lost to Los Angeles Rams, and lost the next year by a field goal with three seconds left.
It was only Week 2, but after what happened the week before, Burrow knew what was needed.
“[The Patriots game] “It ended up being a little tighter than I expected and it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to,” Burrow said. “After that, there was no other option but to go out and let everything fall apart.”
Burrow had 258 yards and two touchdowns in a game the Bengals lost on a field goal. Since then, Burrow has shown the form he had before the injury and has begun to reach new heights in his career.
So far, that hasn’t translated into consistent wins. But if there’s hope the Bengals can turn it around and make a run, it starts with the 2020 No. 1 overall pick, who threw five touchdown passes in a rout of the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday.
“I know we have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL,” Bengals special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons said. “That’s always a good starting point.”
He doesn’t play the piano as much as he used to and he doesn’t flex his wrist as much either. After a stretch of his career that has been as good as any, Burrow no longer contemplates his football mortality.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Burrow said, sitting down at his locker before looking up and flashing a wide smile. “We’re back.”
