WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL WEEK 11

BY ADAM GREENE

JOE BURROW MIGHT BE OUT A YEAR

When Cincinnati Bengals rookie quarterback went down with a knee injury Sunday in a 20-9 loss to the Washington Football Team, everyone knew his season was over. Even Burrow didn’t waste any time being coy, Tweeting out “See ya next year” barely an hour later. He was cheery, about to work on his comeback and if you were a Bengals fan, the sky didn’t have to be falling. Cincy had shown some real growth as a team, especially as an offense and Burrow looked very much like a slam dunk pick.

Then Monday came. And the sky totally fell.

After a thorough evaluation it turns out Burrow tore nearly everything he could have in his knee; his ACL, MCL and other “structures” that booted his recovery time from a few months to maybe even a calendar year.

The Bengals were not going to win this season. They weren’t going to finish any better than 4-12 or 5-11 so a Burrow injury, if it had been “normal,” would have actually worked out pretty well. They’d get a guaranteed a Top Five pick in April 2021’s NFL Draft (they would currently pick third) and likely nab whatever offensive lineman they saw fit.

There was a chance, if the QBs outside of Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence got hot, that the high draft pick could have been turned into multiple first round picks as quarterback-hungry teams offered megadeal trades to set Burrow and the team up for years to come. But now, all you have is uncertainty, not just for Burrow’s return, but for head coach Zac Taylor’s future with the team.

The Burrow injury news came with the caveat that “every player heals at his own pace,” but the average recovery time for this type of injury is 9-12 months. If everything goes perfect, maybe Burrow is ready for the beginning of next season.

And here’s the thing; the Bengals can’t rush him back. You don’t want to go through what the old St. Louis Rams did with Sam Bradford and lose him for consecutive seasons and basically ruin his career.

So what does Cincinnati do, considering there’s a real chance Burrow won’t see the field again until Thanksgiving 2021?

If I’m running the team, I draft a quarterback. And I’m not talking at No. 3. You want to turn that pick into multiple picks with a trade or grab the best OL available. The fact that the Bengals offensive line is so bad was a big reason this happened in the first place. Cincinnati needs to open up the coffers and rob the free agent market too.

But in the second or third round you want some insurance, making the same call that the Philadelphia Eagles did back in April when they selected Jalen Hurts out of Oklahoma in the second round. That means “reaching” for a guy like Iowa State’s Brock Purdy or Florida’s Kyle Trask. And you’re dream scenario when you do that is you’re wasting a pick. That Burrow will be fine and turn into a franchise QB and you can ship Purdy or Trask out of town in a year or two and recoup your second rounder like the New England Patriots did with Jimmy Garoppolo.

But you need the insurance. And you don’t want to drag in some free agent like Joe Flacco or Cam Newton. You want a guy, like Trask of Purdy, that you can create value with. That you can use in a trade. Or that turns out to be the franchise guy you thought Burrow was going to be. But you keep forging your team like you have a QB (because you do) and the worst case scenario becomes that you have two. And, that’s good because, as Don “Magic” Juan used to say, one is so close to none.

Zac Taylor, in year three, will be out of excuses. Even without Burrow, his neck is on the chopping block if they can’t put it together and compete next season. You can’t put a band aid on this. You have to keep building.

PLAYOFF UPDATE

There’s no reason to go deep here, but it’s worth it to see, as we head into Week 12, where every team is currently seeded.

In the AFC, the Pittsburgh Steelers (10-0) remain the one-seed, with the Kansas City Chiefs (9-1) at No. 2, the Buffalo Bills (7-3) at No. 3 and the Indianapolis Colts (7-3) at four. Five is the Tennessee Titans (7-3), six is the Cleveland Browns (7-3) and seven is the Las Vegas Raiders (6-4).

The Baltimore Ravens (6-4) and Miami Dolphins (6-4) are currently right outside the bracket. Officially, only the New York Jets have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. But those dominos are going to start to fall.

The NFC is a lot more cut and dry, with the New Orleans Saints (8-2) sitting at No. 1, the Los Angeles Rams (7-3) at two, the Green Bay Packers (7-3) at three and the Philadelphia Eagles (3-6-1), in defiance of all reason, still at four. At No. 5 is the Seattle Seahawks (7-3), with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-4) at six and the Arizona Cardinals (6-4) at seven.

The Chicago Bears (5-5) are really the only team close to sneaking in at this point, but no NFC team is mathematically out of it as of today.

NFC IS WIDE OPEN

Being realistic, there’s only three teams that could come out of the AFC at this point and even that might be a stretch. The Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers are far above their competition and will never play in the regular season. So unless the Buffalo Bills somehow spoil it (and they could), one of those franchises will hoist the Lamar Hunt Trophy.

The NFC, on the other hand, is a scrum. And while you could all but guarantee the current seeding will hold up (with the exception of the Bears sneaking in if the Cards stumble), it’s pretty much anyone’s game. Seeds 1-3 and 5-6 could easily make their way through and claim the George Halas Trophy, especially considering that home field advantage will be negligible. There’s a not a team there (Saints, Rams, Packers, Seahawks, Bucs) you couldn’t see beating the other in the playoffs. It’s going to be a gauntlet and the team that gets through it could be tested and ready to upset the Chiefs or Steelers, as they will most certainly be the underdogs. 

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