Bengals fans can stop holding their collective breath.
Superstar quarterback Joe Burrow was carted off Thursday at training camp practice with what was later diagnosed as a calf strain.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Burrow went down and was “grabbing his calf.”
Video of the play shared by WCPO showed that Burrow suffered a non-contact injury while scrambling.
Bengals coach Zac Taylor told reporters it was a calf injury.
“We don’t have any information yet,” he said. “This is football, guys go down with an injury that maybe is a day thing, who knows. We don’t message the team after single person goes down. There’s a lot of guys who had soreness today that had reps cut down. That’s just part of football training.”
Burrow is widely regarded as one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and was wearing a calf sleeve on the injured leg.
“Sometimes players feel a little sore after the first day,” Taylor said when asked about the sleeve on the QB’s right calf.
Burrow’s teammates didn’t seen to be too concerned about the injury, despite the initial reaction.
“I’m not the expert here, but my gut says Joe will be OK,” center Ted Karras said.
“I’m not going to talk about another player’s injuries, but I know about calf strains all too well, and they are painful but aren’t the end of the world,” defensive end Sam Hubbard said. “They do linger a bit, but I think the training staff and Joe are going to do the right thing and to take care of this early in camp and be ready to go.”
Burrow led the Bengals to an AFC North title with a 12-4 record last season before losing to the Chiefs, 23-20, in the AFC Championship game.
The previous season, he led a comeback from down 21-3 in the first half to defeat the Chiefs, 27-24 in overtime, in the AFC title game before falling to the Rams in Super Bowl 2022, 23-20.
Burrow was the first-overall pick in the 2020 draft and is entering his fourth season with the Bengals and is negotiating a contract extension that will assuredly place him among the NFL’s highest-paid players.
