CINCINNATI — When Joe Burrow flushed out of the pocket during the second-to-last period of Thursday’s steamy practice and accelerated toward the sideline, the worst scene imaginable unfolded on the Kettering Health practice fields.
The reactions were audible. The stares were long.
“Me and DJ (Reader) were running parallel with him,” center Ted Karras said. “You could hear us both gasp.”
Burrow hobbled multiple times and fell to the ground on his rear. He sat on the ground as trainers and a smattering of players came near, staring down judging the health of his right calf — and the Bengals’ championship aspirations.
Joe Mixon went to a knee next to Burrow to block the view from the media observation area. One player yelled for cameras to go down. There’s no tension in Cincinnati sports quite like the unknown of the franchise savior’s health.
The prognosis from head coach Zac Taylor 10 minutes later came with the expected uncertainty of an immediate aftermath.
“Just saw his calf,” Taylor said.
Sources eventually confirmed the diagnosis of a calf strain that will force Burrow to miss time but is not being deemed serious.
Here's the BURROW injury slowed down, it's hard to see where it really happened but IT WAS THIS STEP #Bengals #WhoDey pic.twitter.com/cpkz86auU1
— Mark Slaughter (@MarkVSlaughter) July 27, 2023
Burrow was wearing a compression sleeve around the right calf on Thursday, something he’s not noted for ever wearing and did not have Wednesday.
Before Burrow left on a cart, Ja’Marr Chase approached the quarterback. He was looking for one reaction in particular.
“We always give each other that nod,” his star teammate from LSU said. “He gave me a nod he’s all right. He’s a strong dude.”
Now, Chase was yet to speak or even see his quarterback. Many players were making their way into the training room where the city’s most important calf was under inspection. Chase hadn’t yet. As much trust as exists with their unspoken connection, it might end with injury analysis.
His positivity was the point of the locker room in the wake of witnessing a potential disaster.
Even if they didn’t know anything for sure about Burrow’s calf injury, they wanted to believe the signs that he would be fine.
Sam Hubbard, one of Burrow’s closest friends from their days at Ohio State and fellow captain, knew better than to speculate or minimize.
“I know about calf strains all too well,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard sustained a medial calf strain just last season on Dec. 18 in Tampa. The edge rusher missed two games, then returned on Jan. 8 for the season finale against Baltimore, playing 85 percent of the snaps.
“They are really painful,” he said. “They are not the end of the world. They do linger a bit. Took me a while … They take a couple weeks, rest them and good to go. That’s all I know.”
He was sure not to speculate on if Burrow was going through the exact same situation, merely thankful it came so early in camp, still 45 days away from the opener in Cleveland.
No two injuries are the same, but Burrow’s not the first franchise quarterback to come down with a calf injury, either.
In 2021, Dak Prescott strained his calf in Week 6 on the final play of a win in New England. He missed two weeks — first a bye, then a game in Minnesota — before returning to play the final 11 games of the year.
If an injury were to occur, now is the best possible timing, a fact all too familiar for Burrow.
In 2020, he entered as a rookie during the pandemic and shortened camp with zero preseason games.
In 2021, he didn’t fully participate in training camp coming off his ACL tear.
In 2022, he had an appendectomy days before camp started, lost weight and missed the majority of camp.
He just sat at the media press conference table the day before knocking on it for finally enjoying his first full, healthy training camp of his four-year career.
“I feel great,” Burrow said on Wednesday. “This time last year I was sitting in a hospital bed.”
So much for the theory that wood-knocking fends off all jinxes. Just add this to the hard-luck August that’s apparently a mandate in every Burrow campaign.
The sigh of relief of the injury not being serious was welcome and one Chase, Hubbard and the rest of the Bengals locker room was waiting to see.
For a team with all the momentum imaginable coming out of the gates, though …
“Whatever it is, it’s just a bummer,” Hubbard said. “No way to go around it.”
(Top photo: Kareem Elgazzar / USA Today)
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Joe Burrow’s calf strain: Bengals’ locker room reactions and timeline examples - The Athletic
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