Bengals Beat: Dan Pitcher, Offense Ready To Move On Without Joe Burrow, ‘Ready to Ride’ With Jake Browning

CINCINNATI — The shock is again beginning to wear off and the Bengals are moving on in a world without Joe Burrow, out indefinitely with turf toe and ligament damage in his left foot.

The weight of Super Bowl hopes falls to Jake Browning, who was 4-3 in seven starts following Burrow’s right wrist injury of Nov. 2023.

Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher, along with head coach Zac Taylor, are now tasked with getting Browning again in a place where he can lead the Bengals. This time, it’s not just to see if he can get them to the playoffs over the final two months of the season. Rather, the 2025 Bengals are Browning’s to command. For the next 15 games, the Bengals will live and die with Browning as their offensive general.

NFL history in the last 50 years is filled with examples of backup quarterbacks that should give the Bengals and their fans hope that the Super Bowl and a deep playoff run is not off the table. In Miami’s vaunted undefeated season of 1972, Earl Morrall took over for Bob Griese, who broke his foot in Week 5 against San Diego and led the Dolphins to a win in that game and then nine straight after that and then a playoff win against Cleveland before Bob Griese came returned in the second half of the AFC Championship in Pittsburgh and won that game and Super Bowl VII.

Jeff Hostetler took over for Phil Simms in 1990 and led the Giants to a win in “Wide Right” Super Bowl XXV. Kurt Warner replaced Trent Green in 1999 and led the Rams to a win in Super Bowl XXXIV. Tom Brady took over for Drew Bledsoe in 2001 after Mo Lewis blasted Bledsoe on the sideline in (ironically) Week 2. Brady was injured in the AFC title game and Bledsoe returned to lead the Patriots to victory before Brady returned for the Super Bowl against the Rams.

The Eagles were rolling through the 2017 season with second-year QB Carson Wentz – who will start this Sunday against the Bengals – when he tore his ACL and Nick Foles came on to lead Philadelphia to its first-ever Super Bowl title, in a Super Bowl win over Tom Brady, forever known as “Philly Special.”

A Bengals run to the Super Bowl was not wiped off the board Sunday. It just may look different – very different – than many had expected coming into this season.

“We’re 2-0, and we’ve got a lot of good energy right now,” Taylor said. “There’s a lot of things that we can clean up with our football team to be better going forward. We have not put our best foot forward yet, and so that’s what’s exciting is that we found a way to be 2-0 right now and we still haven’t even played our best football, collectively. So the goal this week is find a way to go on the road and be 3-0, and I know our guys are jumping at the for that opportunity.

“We have a ton of confidence in Jake and so he proved that (Sunday) against what I think everyone’s going to see is a really good football team. He’s done in the past. He’s played against this team, we’re about to play, so he’s got experience there. Again, the point that you turn to now is excited for Jake to go out there and play and he’s earned the right to be in the spotlight and so guys will rally behind him and we’ll get Jake’s best.

The most encouraging part of Sunday was that Browning showed that with the game on the line, he could lead the team on an extended drive, convert two fourth downs under pressure, and get the team to 2-0. That win had everything to do with Browning’s ability to overcome adversity, some self-inflicted.

That’s why players and coaches believe in him. That’s why there’s no urgency on the part of the Bengals to go out and get a starter to challenge Browning. The Bengals promoted Brett Rypien and signed Mike White (who led the Jets to a miraculous 34-31 win over the Bengals in 2021) and Sean Clifford to the practice squad.

That should tell everyone, including Browning himself, that they are “riding with” Browning as their starting quarterback. There have been reports and speculation that the Bengals would be interested in the likes of Jameis Winston, Russell Wilson or Kirk Cousins. With Browning already proving that he can produce in this system and with his teammates responding to him, there was no need to go out and get a quarterback to challenge that.

“Everybody’s leadership style is different,” Pitcher said. “He’s very comfortable in his skin. He knows how to talk to these guys. They trust him. They respect him. And I know, without a doubt, they’re going to play really hard for him.”

Browning will still have some of the most elite and balanced weapons in the NFL to throw to, in Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Andrei Iosivas, Mike Gesicki, Chase Brown and Mitchell Tinsley. It’s more than just the 31-27 win on Sunday, the 92-yard, 15-play drive, the quarterback keeper with 18 seconds remaining. The players have a sense that Browning can not only manage games, he can win them.

“Because we’ve seen him do it before,” said Iosivas, who drew a defensive pass interference on Travis Hunter on fourth down to keep the drive going. “And just because he’s a backup doesn’t mean he doesn’t have starting potential. We have one of the best QBs in the world at the helm. And just because Jake is not able to be a starter just because of the situation he’s in, and now he is, and we all are confident in him, because he’s a great player.

“I think the backup QB always is kind of that fun kind of chill guy, and it makes it sometimes easier to have rapport with him, because he’s like one of the bros. So I think he kind of has that with everybody, and so it’ll be a good chemistry for him coming in.”

“I think any rapport that’s established with guys that you’ve been around for a long time is valuable,” Pitcher added. “And again, this is year five for Jake here. I mean, so these guys know him, he knows them. And so that’s that’s another reason why we have confidence after what he did.”

Good thing the Bengals didn’t trade him after the ’23 season, trying to gain more draft capital for him.

“If it was, it was above my pay grade,” Pitcher said of any internal trade discussions. “So, I would always have been in favor of keeping this guy on our football team, an affordable backup. It’s pretty important thing to have.”

And it’s the reason that the Bengals internally believe their season is not over. Far from it. They still possess all the weapons and could they be a more run-influenced team going forward?

There’s no arguing Joe Burrow brought an unique gift of reading and processing different defensive looks quickly and accurately, pre and post-snap. Burrow is arguably the very best in the NFL at maneuvering pieces to a look he likes. Browning has demonstrated to Pitcher and Taylor he’s capable of breaking down different looks as well, just maybe in a different way.

“Jake’s a really good post-snap (quarterback), finding targets that are two, three or four in his progression, and he’s throwing the ball really well. He really is. He’s putting the ball exactly where he wants to put the ball. Obviously, I think there’s a couple, maybe the long one to Tee the one we just missed, to Ja’Marr on the high angle corner. Those are small, small misses.

“So, I think he’s a gifted thrower of the football. He’s been a gifted thrower the football for his whole life, and that’s no different now.”

All of this is not to diminish the loss of Burrow. He is the face of the franchise and everything the Bengals have done from a football and marketing aspect clearly demonstrates as much. He was extended through the 2029 season at $275 million.

“We’ve built this team organizationally and we’ve devoted resources to what we believe makes us one of, (and) we believe the most explosive, best passing offenses in football,” Pitcher said. “And I think over the course of time, we’ve shown that we at least belong in that conversation. There’s there is risk. No matter what you choose to do you are going to incur risk.

“We have special skill players. We want to accentuate those skill players, which we try to do both things. How do we accentuate their skill set? How do we try to do it in such a way that we’re limiting the amount of times that the Joe’s potentially going to get hit. But he plays quarterback in the NFL. And there’s no just one decision solves all, like everything costs something. So we constantly think about these things. And again, I hate that we’re in this spot, and we’ll always evaluate and reevaluate and do it over and over again. But we can only make the decisions in the moment that we feel give us the best chance to win.”

Dan Pitcher details the play on which Joe Burrow injured his left big toe: “It’s about as standard as football play as you’re going to have. It’s a pick-a-side read, he’s on the right side. We didn’t love the relationship with the corner and the receiver, and that’s going to happen sometimes. And so when that happens, you’re faced with the decision – Do I throw the ball anyway and have to maybe target the ball in a in a spot that might put the ball at risk, or I target in a spot where I don’t think it’s going to get completed? Or do I pull the ball down and try to find a secondary answer, and both of those are viable options. We chose the second one. There’s times where he’s chosen the first one. It’s a football play. It’s a really unfortunate outcome to a standard football play. I wish it didn’t happen. I feel terrible for Joe.”

Dalton Risner recalls fateful play on Joe Burrow, Arik Armstead sack: “I have a lot of respect for Joe Burrow and the player that he is. The game of football is imperfect, and you lose a guy like that, and it’s devastating, of course, because it’s not only his leadership that I spoke on last week, and I’ve only been here two weeks, but it’s also the player that he is. It’s my job to protect him, and I wasn’t at my best on that play. So, part of it I take fault on, of course, I didn’t actually injure the guy, but my job is to protect him, and I don’t think I did a good enough job on that play to keep him safe and healthy.”

Risner rallies around Browning: “I think that’s the game of football, right? Like you got to find a way to win these football games. This is our livelihood. This is everyone in this building’s livelihood, and you got to find a way, regardless of the circumstance. And there was a lot of really good things to take away from the game, the way that we finished the game and driving the whole field and putting 31 points up, the way our defense played at times. So I think there’s a lot of things to take away that are really good. And we did rally, and we did support Jake, and he did come through and help win us the football game. But there’s a lot of things that we can clean up. And everything that happened with Joe is obviously a super tough deal. We kind of just got to rally behind him.”

NOTES:

Placed QB Joe Burrow on the Reserve/Injured list. Burrow suffered a toe injury in Sunday’s game against Jacksonville.

Signed QB Brett Rypien off the practice squad to the active roster. Rypien, a sixth-year player, signed on Aug. 27 to Cincinnati’s practice squad, where he spent the first two games of the season.

Signed QB Sean Clifford to the practice squad. Clifford (6-2, 212), a second-year player out of Penn State, originally was a fifth-round draft pick of Green Bay in 2023. He spent his rookie season on the Packers’ active roster and played in two games, completing one pass for 37 yards. He then spent the entire 2024 season on Green Bay’s practice squad, and was waived by the Packers on Aug. 26. Clifford is a Cincinnati native and played at St. Xavier High School.

Signed QB Mike White to the practice squad. White (6-4, 225), a sixth-year player out of Western Kentucky University, originally was a fifth-round draft pick of Dallas in 2018. He has played in 15 regular-season games with seven starts for the N.Y. Jets (2021-22), Miami (’23) and Buffalo (’24). His career totals include 199 completions on 324 attempts for 2247 yards and nine TDs with 13 INTs. He was waived by the Bills on Aug. 26.

Signed WR Kendric Pryor to the practice squad. Pryor (5-11, 189), a second-year player out of the University of Wisconsin, spent this past offseason and training camp with the Bengals before being waived on Aug. 26. He was not with an NFL team during the first two weeks of the season.