questioning the team\u2019s decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m not anticipating any starters playing,\u201d Bengals coach Zac Taylor said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t talked in depth with the players\u00a0about this third game. I\u2019ve talked to Joe, I haven\u2019t specifically told these guys they\u2019re not playing, but they\u2019re not playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe Burrow braces for the hit. AP<\/p>\n
Taylor opted to change Cincinnati\u2019s preseason plan this year after the team started 0-2 in each of the last three seasons, which has led to two straight years without postseason play.<\/p>\n
Instead of keeping Burrow sidelined like other teams do with their star quarterbacks, such as Buffalo with Josh Allen, the Bengals have had their $275 million man playing in exhibition games.<\/p>\n
Burrow played in two series in the preseason opener against the Eagles on Aug. 7, and then three Monday against Washington, including the controversial play.<\/p>\n
Burrow on the run from defenders. AP<\/p>\n
Instead of sliding, Burrow attempted to extend a play on third down and ultimately had three defenders take him to the turf.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo down, Joe, it\u2019s August,\u201d ESPN announcer Joe Buck said.<\/p>\n
Taylor did not enjoy watching that play, but noted the preseason is intended for those types of moments so players can learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things for him, that\u2019s what preseason football\u2019s for. Do I love seeing that? No, I don\u2019t,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cBut, at the same time, he\u2019s out there learning what he can and can\u2019t do and we\u2019ve seen him get out of that stuff before and that\u2019s why he\u2019s playing in the preseason, for a chance to feel what it\u2019s like to feel in a game and there\u2019s times where he gets out of that and gets a big play and times where we\u2019re in a tough spot at the two-yard line. He gets a chance to feel all that and learn from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was three good series that we\u2019ll continue to learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cincinnati coach Zac Taylor. Sam Greene\/The Enquirer \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n
This season will be a critical one for the Bengals, who have disappointed the past two years following back-to-back runs to the Super Bowl and AFC Championship in the 2021 and 2022 playoffs, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Bengals have star players in Burrow and receivers Ja\u2019Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but a faulty defense has failed them.<\/p>\n
That porous defense is a major reason why ESPN analyst Ryan Clark said the team is \u201cabsolutely\u201d wasting Burrow\u2019s prime years<\/a>.<\/p>\nCincinnati opens the season Sept. 7 at Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel good about where our team\u2019s at right now,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to get through the preseason and go play games because I see what I see in practice. So, I\u2019m just really excited from top to bottom about a lot of the players we have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Burrow won\u2019t be running for his life this week. The Bengals\u2019 star quarterback will not play in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[1822,1808,349,99],"class_list":["post-99558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-joe-burrow","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}