Quick Hits | Joe Burrow Impresses Mates In Second Full Practice: “An All-Time Football Freak”
What we do know is that with NFL-leading receiver Ja’Marr Chase suspended for Sunday, Higgins, long regarded as an NFL No. 1 receiver at Paycor Stadium, gets to put it on display. He’s caught five touchdowns in Flacco’s five starts, but he wouldn’t be surprised by anything Burrow does.
“He’s practicing like he did week one,” Higgins said. “I don’t know what that look meant, but I assume good. He’s slinging it. Deep. Short routes. It’s all been pretty good.”
Karras, a captain and coach’s son, wasn’t giving anything up. Except a nice comparison to an old Patriot comrade of lore.
“Joe’s an all-time football freak. I wouldn’t put anything past him,” said Karras, who was then asked about similarities to Thomas Edward Patrick Brady. “There’s an innate factor in great men when they overcome any type of adversity. He has that.
“I look every quarterback directly in their eyes all the time. Especially when they’re calling plays. I see a lot of fire in his. Always have. Glad to have those blues in the huddle.”
No clues for Sunday. But Orlando Brown agreed. Burrow’s stock is already high in this locker room. With his teammates knowing he could be on an island rather than trying to get them out of 3-7, it’s going higher. In the hours after Burrow limped off the Paycor Stadium turf against the Jags with a turf toe injury that needed surgery, social media doctors pegged him for a December return at the earliest.
Now, a week before Thanksgiving, he’s at back-to-back full practices.
“He’s not one to tap at all. That’s why we love him. That’s why we respect him,” Brown said. “That’s why we love suiting up for him and with him. He’s got all the intangibles and everything you want in a core guy.”
The Bengals defense is attacking their vacant starting cornerback position the same way the offense plans to replace All-Pro wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase against the Pats.
Cornerbacks coach Charles Burks has a tougher task because Chase is going to be back for the next game, while Cam Taylor-Britt is expected to miss the rest of the year with a Lisfranc foot injury that Taylor has indicated needs surgery.
It’s not exactly a tryout for the rest of the season, but Burks makes it clear, “I go with the hot hand.” And this is exactly why he likes to cross-train his outside cornerbacks with his slot corners, those nickel backs.
“There’s a combination of things we can do,” Burks said Thursday. “I don’t like to put parameters on players. I feel like that limits their skill set. What can you do for us in this game?”
Because Burks feels like Dax Hill has played well as his starting nickel, he’s not ruling out moving him to the outside. Conversely, Josh Newton replaced Taylor-Britt on the outside in Pittsburgh last Sunday, but he also plays the slot. And even though Marco Wilson has played only three games this season plagued by injury, he looks to be healthy, and Burks remembers how he played some key snaps in the five-game winning streak that ended last season.
And, the man who has been around this defense the longest, nickel Jalen Davis, could get the call from the practice squad, where he’s been much of the past two seasons. Davis, 29, a fifth-year player, has yet to play this year and played two games last year. But during the 2021-22 playoff runs, he played in 28 games as the backup nickel and has 52 Bengals games under his belt. Many of them big ones.
“Jalen’s a nickel, but he’s started at cornerback for me in the preseason,” Burks said.
Burks is well aware of how an injury can give rise to someone else. He just has to look at Taylor-Britt himself.
It was Chidobe Awuzie’s Halloween ACL tear in 2022 that gave the rookie CTB a shot, and he parlayed it into a marvelous rookie year that ended with Taylor-Britt doing snow angels in the Buffalo end zone celebrating his first career interception that sealed the AFC Divisional. That’s the game Taylor-Britt held Bills’ No. 1 receiver Stefon Diggs to two catches for 11 yards on a night Diggs had four catches for 35 yards.
“You have to earn the right to travel, and Cam earned that right to travel with Diggs,” Burks said.
Wouldn’t you know it? Here comes Diggs Sunday, now with the Patriots. You don’t have to be Pro Football Focus to know who has earned that right this year for the Bengals to cover Diggs.
DJ Turner II is coming off two games he held the Steelers’ DK Metcalf to fewer than 40 yards. Last Sunday, they threw to Turner on Metcalf twice, once for an incompletion and the other on a penalty on Metcalf.
Yet PFF’s No. 1 cover guy for the Bengals Sunday was Hill, a guy Burks covets because you can put him anywhere. And that’s where he may be for the Committee To Stop Drake Maye.
“I feel like you’ve got to keep reminding people that Dax is coming off an ACL,” Burks said. “I think he’s played well and he’s just now starting to really get going off the injury. He’s a guy I’m excited to see Sunday.”
Slants and Screens
Edge Cam Sample (oblique) didn’t practice for the second straight day …
Neither did running back Samaje Perine (ankle) …
Right guard Jalen Rivers (knee/ankle) went limited for his first try of the week …
Edge Cedric Johnson (ankle) went from limited to full …
As expected, edge Trey Hendrickson (hip/pelvis) and cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt (foot) didn’t work Thursday after not going Wednesday …
Tight end Mike Gesicki (pectoral) and safety Daijahn Anthony (hamstring) went full again Thursday in their first week back trying to get off injured reserve …
