While the Cincinnati Bengals exhibited plenty of troubling moments in the first month of the NFL season — as they are prone to do — their cumulative woes were distilled to a single element by those in the industry who watched the team closely: The superstar quarterback was clearly injured.
Joe Burrow’s lingering calf injury showed up in the throws he attempted — generally at or behind the line of scrimmage — and in the oh-so-many painful ones he missed. It showed up in the constricted nature of a once-vibrant downfield passing attack and was reflected in a yards-per-attempt figure that was the lowest of any qualified player through the first four weeks of a season since at least 1950. In diagnosing Cincinnati’s woes, it was almost as if the general manager, scout and front-office personnel executive I spoke with — all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the health and production of a player under contract to another team — had been issued the same talking points.
