Justin Herbert dominates the Week 13 battle vs Joe Burrow: The game grades
By Simon Brady
Joe Burrow Grade: B
The former National Champion, Heisman trophy winner, and Justin Herbert's draft peer, Joe Burrow, had adversity of his own today when he injured his pinky on his throwing hand just before the half. Just before that, he put a go route right on his guy Jamarr Chase when they desperately needed a score. Chase inexplicably juggled it right into Michael Davis hands, who was well beat, bailing him out and gifting the interception.
After another empty series following the interception, Cincinnati got it going putting together four scores out of their five ensuing drives. Burrow delivered for the most part today in the face of a fierce, effective Charger pass rush today who grounded Burrow six times despite a Joey Bosa head injury early on.
Burrow didn't have much of any time to throw for many of his offensive plays today. Though the Bengals offensive line is improving, its still a weakness. And the Bolts capitalized.
Then came the biggest reason for the distinction in the two grades. Burrow led his boys to the red zone with a chance to cut the Charger lead to one possession with 8 minutes left in the contest. He then threw a really bad ball to his tight end CJ Uzomah in double coverage in the end zone for an easy Chris Harris Jr interception, who was sitting on it the whole way.
While his first interception was a brutal drop, this was just a bad decision and inaccurate throw. While Herbert avoided making those mistakes in the teetering moments of the game, Burrow pretty much put the nail in his team's coffin with that one.
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Burrow only completed 60% of his passes, had three turnovers and was the losing quarterback. But between the Chase drop leading to an interception, playing through the pinky injury, the game-changing inexplicable Mixon fumble, coupled with all of the positive play he showed in between that particularly connecting with Tee Higgins, it was worthy of a B performance for a Burrow with a very bright future ahead.