Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s wrist is not yet 100% healthy. That was certainly not noticeable in his limited appearance at the season opener on Saturday night at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati.
“It’s getting better every day,” Burrow said in an interview earlier this week. “I’m really happy with where it is, especially with the volume we’ve put on the last two weeks. Haven’t had any problems with it.”
Burrow completed five of his seven passes for 51 yards. His final pass of the night was a 10-yard touchdown throw to Tee Higgins that gave the Bengals a 7-0 lead and marked the first team’s final play of the night.
Higgins ended up catching two passes for 19 yards and nearly caught a 58-yard pass after a Burrow bootleg. He was also called for pass interference, which put the ball at Tampa Bay’s 10-yard line.
Burrow looked good in his first-ever start in a season opener. In fact, Burrow hadn’t played in a preseason game at all since 2021 after a series of injuries in training camp. In 2022, Burrow underwent an appendectomy the day before training camp began. Last year, he suffered a calf injury in the first week of training camp.
Then there’s the wrist injury he suffered in late November that ended his season early. And the fact that he’s still recovering from the wrist surgery he had in late November that ended his season.
“Not where I want to be yet, but I would say that about a lot of our team right now,” Burrow said. “But this is training camp. We’re improving every day. We’ve got three weeks left to get reps and learn and grow from that. I’m really happy with where we’re at.”
That was evident Saturday night. In addition to his two completions to Higgins, Burrow also threw a 23-yard pass to wide receiver Andrei Iosivas and threw to Trenton Irwin nine yards over the middle while engineering a 12-play, 73-yard touchdown drive.
Chase Brown had runs of five and six during the drive, and the offensive line with freshman Amarius Mims at right tackle did its job of keeping Burrow clean.
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