CINCINNATI — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was a full participant in practice on Wednesday.
The 28-year-old was cleared to practice last week and participated in 7-on-7. This week he took a step forward, participating in 11-on-11 for the first time since undergoing toe surgery in September.
“Joe looked good,” Joe Flacco said. “It’s cool to see him out there and obviously when you know you’re both now taking reps and things like that some conversations kind of happen and just like how do you see this versus that. But but yeah Joe look good.”
“He looks sharp,” Mike Gesicki said. “He looks like he’s been doing this for a while. He didn’t he didn’t lose the ability to throw the football I’ll tell you that much.”
The Bengals have until Dec. 1 to activate Burrow from injured reserve, but the star quarterback took a big step forward on Wednesday. Zac Taylor appeared to leave the door open for Burrow to return this week.
Taylor didn’t make any declarations on Burrow, but also didn’t commit to Flacco being the starter on Sunday against the Patriots.
Flacco was limited on Wednesday due to a shoulder injury he suffered last month against the Jets. The veteran never missed a game due to the injury and is “feeling better.”
Will Flacco start on Sunday against the Patriots?
“We’ll keep working through it you know and see how we go through the week,” Taylor said before practice.
That theoretically leaves the door open for Burrow to suit up and make his return to the field.
Taylor hadn’t seen Burrow go through 11-on-11 yet. His teammates were certainly impressed with what they saw.
“He looks good throwing the ball still really well,” Andrei Iosivas said. “He looks really good throwing the ball.”
The biggest difference between Burrow and Flacco?
“It’s funny because like him and Flacco kind of have some like in and out of the huddle it’s a little different like Flacco will say the cadence once, whereas Joe (Burrow) will say it twice,” Iosivas said. “So he’ll (Flacco) be like on one and then he’ll be like ‘ready? break.’ But Joe (Burrow) goes ‘on one, on one, ready?’ so it’s stuff little stuff like that is like kind of funny we all laughed about it but other than that he looks really good throwing the ball.”
Burrow made it clear last week that he wanted to play again this season. The Bengals are 3-7 and desperately need to win a few games in a row if they’re going to pull off a miracle run to the postseason.
The Bengals play the Patriots on Sunday, followed by the Ravens in Baltimore four days later. Then they travel to Buffalo for a Sunday matchup with the Bills on Dec. 7, followed by a home date vs the Ravens on Dec. 14.
There was plenty of discussion about Burrow returning for their matchup against the Ravens next week, but he may want to speed up the process following Cincinnati’s Week 11 loss to Pittsburgh.
The Bengals don’t have any margin for error. They need to win now. Burrow putting on the Superman cape to try to save the Ja’Marr Chase-less Bengals against the 9-2 Patriots sounds like a fairy tale.
Don’t look now, but he may get the chance to end New England’s 8-game winning streak on Sunday at Paycor Stadium.
