Give the Bengals credit for one thing: They know how to fill the content machine, even in this seemingly lost season. Sensing that the consumer was highly unsatisfied by Cincinnati’s trade deadline strategy, which resulted in dumping linebacker Logan Wilson for a bag of footballs, Zac Taylor dropped a bombshell in his Monday press conference and announced the team was opening the 21-day practice window for Joe Burrow. It appears my paraphrasing Richard III by beseeching, “A toe, a toe, my kingdom for a toe!!” has paid off.
Burrow has been kinda forgotten, incredible as it seems, while Joe Flacco became a folk hero over the past month. So his return from turf toe surgery shocked everyone. He appeared at practice with no limp or protective footwear, then talked to the media and confessed he has his eye on returning for the Thanksgiving night encounter with the Ravens. It was an out-of-nowhere jolt of adrenaline for fans who spent the last three weeks in full GrumbleMode. He did everything but drop the Frank Costanza on an ecstatic Bengals Nation.
Burrow’s return is highly welcome, if not the “Please, Lord, heal his toe” countdown we expected when he was first injured, thanks to Flacco’s excellence and the defense being historically bad. Indeed, one wonders if Burrow’s rehab accelerated when he saw how successful the aged Joe Bursitis has been at the helm and how much fun he’s having throwing balls to Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on the regular. Burrow hasn’t been having fun for some time, and even if he comes back too late to have any impact on the playoff hunt, you can’t begrudge the guy for wanting to get a little bit of enjoyment out of this miserable campaign.
But this is the Bengals, and so no sunshine can possibly appear without a dark cloud alongside. In the same presser, Taylor slipped in a more meaningful announcement, at least for the short term: Trey Hendrickson remains doubtful for Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh.
Cincinnati’s defensive slide into the abyss has coincided with Hendrickson’s unavailability. He hasn’t played in the second half of the last four games, or as he calls it, Closing Time. In the two first halves he managed to play, the Bengals gave up 23 points—not great, but passable when the team is scoring 9 points per quarter, as the Bengals have been under Flacco over the past 14 stanzas. Without him on the field, Cincinnati has surrendered 121 points over the last four games. Needless to say, the pass rush has evaporated completely in his absence as well.
Who would have thought Hendrickson would turn out to be more important than Burrow? But here we are. Bengals PA announcer Tom Kinder knows Trey’s importance, which is why he yelled “Heeeeeeeeeeeeee’s baaaaaaaaackkkkkkkkk!” during pre-game intros before the October 26 Jets game. Alas, Hendrickson returned for just 30 minutes, and who knows when we’ll see No. 91 again? He fired his helmet in frustration after limping off against New York, and when players do that it usually means they’ll be out for a while.
It’s possible—not likely, but possible—that he’s played his last down as a Bengal.
Yes, Cincinnati managed to beat the Steelers October 16 with Trey out—at home, on a short week, and only after a massive defensive lapse that Flacco overcame by having the ball last. Care to offer the odds on a repeat? Cincinnati is 5.5-point underdog on Sunday, even with Aaron Rodgers decomposing a week ago in L.A., his home base. A Bengals win would mean three straight over Pittsburgh, a feat they’ve accomplished exactly once since the late-1980s (the Ryan Finley Game in late-2020 followed by a sweep in 2021).
It will take a Herculean effort for the Bengals to pull off a second-half charge, with Pittsburgh, New England, Buffalo, and the Ravens (x 2) over the next five weeks. Can they win three of the five, get to 6-8, and bring it home with a 3-game win streak against Miami, Arizona, and Cleveland? Will 9-8 even be good enough to sneak into the playoffs? It’s certainly not impossible, even a wild-card entry. (Watch the Chiefs beat the Raiders on the final weekend to eliminate the Bengals after last season’s turtling knocked us out….)
But without Hendrickson on the field for some or perhaps most of those games, that scenario sure isn’t likely, even with Burrow back. That’s why blowing the game against the Jets in particular was so crushing—potentially 2025’s version of the Patriots loss last year. If Hendrickson wasn’t cheap-shotted out of that Jets encounter just before halftime, Cincinnati had a good chances to close out that one. But he was, they didn’t, and the season teeters on a knife edge instead of being full of potential, even with all the issues on D.
Instead, the more likely scenario is that the defense continues to be execrable and Cincinnati drops the next two games and are 3-8 heading into that Tryptophan Bowl encounter with Baltimore. Does Burrow risk it to suit up? Even if the Bengals manage to beat the Ravens, a miracle playoff run would require five straight subsequent victories. Would that be worth it?
Players play, so Burrow will surely push to be out there regardless of circumstances, but it would feel rather empty. And as we all know, sometimes you have to save Joey B. from himself.
I’m not saying you should start checking out mock drafts just yet, but Burrow’s big announcement isn’t the huge boost it felt like in the moment. It’s great that he’s healthy and getting close to a return, but the Bengals failed him in his absence.
Robert Weintraub heads up Bengals coverage for Cincinnati Magazine and has written for The New York Times, Grantland, Slate, and Deadspin. He guests on Mo Egger’s radio show every Thursday in the 4 p.m. hour. Follow him on X at @robwein.