CINCINNATI (WKRC) – When Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow suffered his severe turf toe injury on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars that will require surgery and lead to him being out a minimum of three months, the final finger-pointing of blame quickly went to the offensive line. That would be an extremely lazy way to look at what transpired.

Burrow suffered the injury when he was sacked by Jaguars defensive tackle Arik Armstead for a 5-yard loss at the Bengals 35-yard line with 9:02 remaining in the first half. Burrow went into the sideline medical tent. He came out and walked briefly with a limp before heading to the locker room.

While much of the blame for the injury has centered around the offensive line, both among national media and the fan base, head coach Zac Taylor didn’t point his finger that way.

“If people are looking at the offensive line as the number one reason in that thing, that was an all 11 people on the same page (thing) in that last game,” said Taylor. “Especially early on, there’s some things that we got to correct at every position to be able to all be on the same page. It is simple as that, and that’s coaching, that’s the receivers, that’s the tight ends, that’s the running backs and that’s the offensive line and the quarterback all working in unison with each other. The line always takes all the blame for it. I’ve got confidence in those guys and we’re going to continue to get their best going forward.”

On that play, Burrow opted not to take a chance on his first read, and maybe even his second, at which point the protection began to break down. He then tried to scramble around a massive amount of players for both teams and couldn’t get out before being sacked. It’s arguable that at some point he should have thrown the ball away. The thing is, that’s not how he’s wired. He has talked openly about being willing to take sacks on extended plays, especially on third down in order to give his team a chance to convert.

“I mean it’s about as standard of a football play as you’re going to have,” said offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher. “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 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? Both of those are viable options. We chose the second one. There’s times where he has 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. It’s a football play.”

It’s also the way the Bengals have allowed Burrow to play, which isn’t a bad thing based on his track record when healthy. The team uses a chunk of five-man protections with five receivers in the pattern, and Burrow has the freedom and athleticism to extend plays.

“It’s unfortunate that this happened, but again, that’s just, that’s part of football and that’s what’s going to happen,” said Taylor. “Guys are in the pocket; guys are moving around. I don’t know how a turf toe injury fully happens, how you got to get hit or stepped on. I know that potentially he could have been clean for 99% of the game and the one play is where this happens, and so I get it. I understand where people are going to come from. It’s going to be very attacking of us and our style of play that’s got us to a Super Bowl and an AFC Championship (Game) and two division titles and won a lot of games for us.”

It does put a lot of stress on the offensive line.

That comes back to the belief among many that the Bengals haven’t allocated enough resources to protect their most valuable asset.

Prior to the 2022 season they signed free agent center Ted Karras, free agent guard Alex Cappa and free agent offensive tackle La’El Collins in addition to spending a fourth-round pick on guard Cordell Volson. The four combined to start 63 of a possible 64 regular-season games, while left tackle Jonah Williams, a first-round pick in 2019, started all 16 games at left tackle. The Bengals reached the AFC Championship game that season.

Prior to the 2023 season they signed free agent Orlando Brown, who had been a Pro Bowl selection in each of the last four seasons.

In the 2024 draft they selected right tackle Amarius Mims in the first round.

In the 2025 draft they selected left guard Dylan Fairchild in the third round.

They have extended Karras’ contract twice.

You can argue they should have done more to address the right guard position, but they did sign veteran free agent Lucas Patrick and just prior to the season signed veteran Dalton Risner.

Could they have spent more money to address the guard position? Perhaps, but after re-signing Ja’Marr Chase to a $40 million per year deal, wide receiver Tee Higgins to a $29 million per year deal, and not knowing during free agency where things would land with defensive end Trey Hendrickson’s contract that didn’t leave much wiggle room to address offensive line.

“I think we’ve built this team organizationally and we’ve devoted resources to what we makes us one of, we believe the most explosive, best passing offenses in football,” said Pitcher. “I think over the course of time we’ve shown that we at least belong in that conversation. 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. 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 Joe’s potentially going to get hit, but he plays quarterback in the NFL. It was a quick game (the play he got hurt). We call those and things are going to happen, and so there is, there’s no just one decision solves all. Everything costs something, so we constantly think about these things and again, I hate that we’re in this spot and we will 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. If you would’ve told me that was going to happen before the play started, we would’ve called a different, if I had a crystal ball, sure we would’ve done something different, but it’s just part of the risk of football.”

Brown said he understands the frustration of fans blaming him and linemates for the injury. That doesn’t mean that criticism is fair.

“I think the responsibility up front is for us is to block the guys we’re going against and the expectation is to hold the block as long as possible, but in those situations when the quarterback is looking to extend the play and scrambling it’s hard to say if puts more pressure on us,” said Brown “For me whatever it takes to win is most important. It’s kind of what comes with the territory. I do believe we have to do a better job in totality playing better together as a unit. At the end of the day I believe it is on us to keep him clean. I will say it’s a team sport. It takes all 11 guys for a play to be executed.”

Or in this case for a guy to get hurt, and not just the five on the offensive line.