Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was pulled from Thursday's game vs. the Ravens with a wrist injury and has since been ruled out for the season because of the ailment.
And while it looked as if he may have suffered the injury after a tackle from Ravens end Jadeveon Clowney, there's some evidence that points to the fact that his wrist had already been injured before the game even started.
Burrow was seen wearing a wrist brace in a since-deleted video posted by the Bengals social media team.
The @PrimeVideo broadcast showed this video of #Bengals QB Joe Burrow getting off the team bus with a brace/wrap around his right wrist and thumb.
Burrow wasn't on the injury report. Now he's questionable with a right wrist injury. Jake Browning is in. pic.twitter.com/6ozbQ2SX1k
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) November 17, 2023
And the hit by Clowney wasn't egregiously forceful, either.
The Bengals didn't mention anything about Burrow's wrist in its injury reports leading up to the game. If Burrow had been injured, it would have been a blatant violation of league protocols — and an affront to the markets.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor insisted repeatedly that he wasn't aware of any preexisting injury to Burrow's wrist.
Here's the play where Joe Burrow appears to have hurt his wrist after being hit by Jadeveon Clowneypic.twitter.com/OsZ8nvagzE
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) November 17, 2023
Still, naturally, Bengals bettors are up in arms, having wagered on the team under the pretense that Burrow was healthy, apart from the publicly acknowledged calf injury that had affected him earlier in the season.
And those with player props on Burrow or other Bengals skill position players are following suit, arguing that the market would have been drastically lower had there been public knowledge about a potential injury.
For his part, New York Law School sports law professor Dan Lust thinks bettors don't have much recourse should they pursue litigation in this scenario, even if the concealment is true. He cites legal precedent that states gamblers are incurring an assumption of risk by placing a wager on any market — regardless of the information available.
It's why users lost a court case when they tried suing DraftKings after the Astros' sign stealing scandal from 2017. An appellate court knocked that case — which tried to hold MLB, the Astros and Red Sox liable for fraud — down in 2022.
One point regarding the Burrow case that Lust thinks has intrigue is that the Bengals deleted a video showing Burrow wearing a wrap on his wrist.
"Deleting potential evidence could have an impact on the court," Lust told the Action Network. "The act of deletion is sometimes seen as an act of covering up that you did something wrong."
The NFL has launched an investigation into the matter.
