Dan Orlovsky compares Joe Burrow’s career path to another ill-fated superstar after latest injury

The Bengals rule Joe Burrow out for three months; Orlovsky compared it to Andrew Luck’s injury hell with the Colts

Early on Monday morning, the Cincinnati Bengals confirmed that Joe Burrow will require surgery on a grade-three turf-toe injury, which will sideline him for a minimum of three months.

It’s a torn ligament at the base of the big toe, which is an injury that almost always requires surgery. Many are already claiming the three-month timeline is extremely ambitious, and there’s a good chance that Burrow will miss the entire regular season.

Analysts have been pointing to the Bengals’ alarming issues all summer, and many felt some sort of injury was almost inevitable.

The news is naturally devastating for the Cincinnati Bengals, whose team is built around Burrow and his two elite receivers in Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

The Bengals have consistently failed to build a successful offensive line, and Joe Burrow has taken endless damage as their franchise quarterback for years now as a result.

Cincinnati’s offensive line was statistically the worst in pass protection last season, and Burrow had already been running for his life through the first two games of the 2025 season against the Cleveland Browns and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Adam Schefter pointed out that the Bengals’ offensive line has ranked in the bottom five in pass protection every season since they drafted Burrow in 2020.

The quarterback has endured countless injuries as a result, including the gruesome knee injury that ended his rookie season, when he tore the ACL, MCL, and PCL in his left knee, as well as suffering a partially torn meniscus.

The quarterback missed the second half of the 2023 season due to a wrist ligament injury and will now be out for the majority, if not all, of the 2025 season, too.

Dan Orlovsky reacted to the news on social media, referencing Andrew Luck’s career with the Indianapolis Colts.

The analyst said:

“Just absolutely brutal. Feels like Andrew Luck all over again.”

Andrew Luck retired at the age of 29, after suffering multiple season-ending injuries with the Indianapolis Colts.

Just like Joe Burrow, Luck dealt with a poor offensive line for the majority of his career, and took far too many unnecessary hits as a result.

In 2015 he suffered a shoulder injury that would bother him all the way through until 2017 when he decided to have surgery. In that same 2015 season, he took a crushing hit that resulted in a lacerated kidney, causing him to miss the remainder of the year.

The surgery on his shoulder ultimately cost him the entire 2017 season, but he came back in 2018 as one of the best quarterbacks in football and won the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award as a result.

Sadly, that would be his final year in the NFL. Luck suffered multiple lower body injuries in the build up to the 2019 season and ultimately decided to retire.

He said:

“I’ve been stuck in this process. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. It’s taken the joy out of this game. The only way forward for me is to remove myself from football. This is not an easy decision. It’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me.”

His retirement is one of the most devastating stories for any quarterback in NFL history, and the Colts mishandling of their star led them down a disastrous path for several years that followed.

Joe Burrow is dealing with a similar level of negligence, with the Bengals opting to pay three or four superstars and expecting them to carry the rest of the roster.

The offensive line has been dismal for years now, and they just can’t get it right.

Bengals will now be without Burrow until at least December, but they have a 2-0 record to build on

This Bengals team could easily be 0-2. They haven’t played well collectively in either of the first two games of the season, and have almost been fortunate that both the Cleveland Browns and the Jacksonville Jaguars managed to beat themselves.

That said, they’re still 2-0. How they got there doesn’t matter, and what they do now will be a decision that likely decides the future of Zac Taylor and the coaching staff.

If they miss the playoffs again this season, Taylor might be out. It would be the third season in a row without a postseason appearance, and the Bengals head coach was already on the hot seat before the 2025 campaign kicked off.

With that in mind, Cincinnati can’t settle. They should have improved their quarterback room during the offseason, but they didn’t, and Jake Browning did not play well when he took over in Sunday’s game.

They’re now in the market for a free agent quarterback, but a trade for a player who could challenge Browning for the starting job should also be in play.