Joe Burrow possibly is inching toward playing in Monday night’s rematch of Super Bowl LVI.
The Bengals quarterback was limited in practice on Friday, with the calf injury he aggravated on Sunday. That’s the official designation provided by the team.
Of course, no one knows what “limited” actually means when it comes to the things he did or didn’t do at practice. We all know he’s limited by the muscle injury in his lower leg.
And anyone who has had a soft-tissue injury in the lower or upper leg knows it takes time to fully heal, and that if it doesn’t fully heal it possibly returns at some point. Burrow needs time to get to 100 percent. The Bengals have to decide whether to risk having it get worse and/or to accept a potentially impaired Burrow or to let Jake Browning take over.
The final designation of Burrow will come on Saturday — questionable, doubtful, or out. There’s often a gamesmanship quality to the injury reports, with one team trying to keep the other guessing for as long as possible.
Which means it keeps the rest of us guessing, too.
On Saturday, the guessing ends if he’s out. Chances are he’ll be questionable or doubtful (which isn’t used nearly as much as it should be), and that we’ll find out 90 minutes before kickoff whether he’ll be playing.