If you had heard the Cincinnati Bengals scored 41 points this week without Tee Higgins, you’d be forgiven to think Jermaine Burton helped the offense find success it had been lacking without one of its stars. You’d also be surprised to hear that not only did Burton not catch a single pass, he didn’t take one step onto the field.
The Bengals made Burton a healthy inactive for Sunday’s game and reports emerged after the fact that him missing Saturday’s walkthrough was the reasoning for it. It’s about as inexcusable of a mistake as a player could make, and head coach Zac Taylor acted accordingly.
After the Bengals’ 41-24 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders, Taylor explained that Burton was going to be heavily featured in the game plan, but stood by the decision to scrap all of it in favor of sidelining him as punishment.
“Jermaine was a big part of the plan, and as the week unfolded, there was a lot of positive things people were saying about him. It was all true, and then late in the week, we just got to handle all of our business the right way,” Taylor told reporters. “And so I can sit here and say it was a difficult decision to make him inactive but it was absolutely the right decision with all the information we had.”