Bengals QB Joe Burrow Makes Injury Admission Before 7th NFL Season

Three months before the start of his seventh NFL season, Joe Burrow sat down on the “Sports Seriously Podcast” and reflected on the injury that derailed the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2025 campaign. The Bengals quarterback downplayed the severity of the setback, but his comments offered new insight into how he navigated one of the most difficult stretches of his career.

“It really wasn’t too brutal for me,” Burrow said. “I couldn’t run, really, for most of the season. But I don’t really have to as a QB. And I have a lot of knowledge of the game now that I can find ways to play around that. And that’s why I was able to come back so quickly. But when it happened, it certainly didn’t feel great. And I had to get surgery. Unfortunately, we necessarily didn’t think there were any options to not do that at that time. So we just got down to it as quickly as possible.”

Burrow suffered a Grade 3 turf toe injury, the most severe classification of the setback, during the second quarter of Cincinnati's Week 2 victory over Jacksonville on Sept. 14, 2025. The injury involved torn ligaments in his left toe and required surgery at Birmingham's Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center, where foot and ankle specialist Dr. Norman Waldrop performed the procedure.

At the time, the expectation was that Burrow would miss at least three months. After the surgery, speculation grew about his recovery timeline potentially extending into the postseason, assuming Cincinnati remained in playoff contention.

Burrow returned to the lineup in December and attempted to pull Cincinnati back into the playoff race during the final weeks of the season. But the hole the Bengals had dug without him proved too deep to escape. 

Cincinnati finished 6-11 in 2025, with Burrow missing nine games during the heart of the season. An offense that led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns in 2024 struggled to maintain the same level of production without its franchise quarterback.

Now healthy and leading what he himself has dubbed the most talented roster of his NFL career, Burrow's availability remains perhaps the single biggest factor in Cincinnati's championship hopes. The Bengals spent the offseason rebuilding a defense that undermined an otherwise productive offense last year. And as long as Burrow stays healthy on the field, expectations in Cincinnati will be considerably higher than they were a year ago.