Report: Bengals have dialed back playbook due to Burrow’s calf

And Joe Burrow still reinjured his calf vs. the Ravens.

Things have been off for the Cincinnati Bengals. It took six quarters for the offense to show any signs of the explosive unit we’ve seen over the last two seasons. Protection issues, lack of shots downfield, and pure blandness have been what we have seen for much of the 2023 campaign.

That has raised a lot of questions around the NFL world about the health of Joe Burrow’s calf, as he hasn’t looked like himself either. Many have wondered if the vanilla play calling has been related to Burrow’s limitations, and it appears that may be the case.

Per Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, the team has changed their play-calling strategy to try to avoid re-injury to Burrow’s strained calf.

The staff felt great about the progress of Burrow up until that point. The coaches had limited the game plan to hedge against reinjury risk for two weeks. There were no snaps under center or designed rollouts. The majority of plays centered around quick, timing throws,” Dehner said.

When it comes to essentially not being able to go under center, a time where your first two opponents are AFC North foes with tough defenses, it certainly isn’t elite timing. The defenses clearly saw that and adjusted to it, leading to the early season offensive struggles.

On the other hand, we would all take that over Burrow suffering another injury, but it seems we may not be out of the woods on that yet, either. Burrow said after the game Sunday that he “tweaked” his calf. Later, it was reported that the Bengals would be taking it “day to day” with him.

Burrow clearly hasn’t been himself, the offense has struggled, and we may be dealing with this for a lot longer than we had hoped.