Jermaine Burton has yet to play this season for the Bengals. The second-year wideout continued that trend in Week 14 after he didn’t travel with the team.
On Saturday, Burton was ruled out for the Bengals’ matchup against the Bills today for non-injury-related reasons. The team later announced that he had been suspended for the sport. The choice will result in over $59K in lost money via a forfeited game check (h/t Tom Pelissero of NFL Network). Details on what prompted this discipline haven’t yet emerged. Nevertheless, this represents one other unwanted development for Burton.
A 3rd-round pick last yr, Burton had a quiet rookie season as Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Andrei Iosivas, Mike Gesicki, and Chase Brown accounted for nearly 80 percent of quarterback Joe Burrow‘s targets. Burton was targeted 14 times in 2024 but only caught 4 balls. He did benefit from those receptions, though, proving his deep threat ability with 107 receiving yards.
This isn’t the primary time the 24-year-old has not been allowed to travel with the team. In late-December 2024, Burton was accused of assault in a domestic dispute with an ex-girlfriend. 4 days later, the Bengals announced that Burton wouldn’t be traveling on the team’s trip to Pittsburgh to finish the season.
He hasn’t appeared in a game since that announcement, so there’s reason to imagine the 2 data points could connect, but there’s been no reporting on the prior incident to suggest it’s been behind his prolonged absence this season. In actual fact, yesterday’s announcement of his suspension for today’s game indicates that he hasn’t been suspended thus far, so the absence all year long could possibly be totally unrelated to discipline.
We are able to only report what we hear, and little has been coming out of Cincinnati this yr regarding the second-year Alabama product. Regardless of the situation, Burton should want to get on the precise side of things soon. Glowing reports have already come through on the wide receivers at the highest of the 2026 NFL Draft class, and the Bengals may determine to dip back into those waters in the event that they think they’ll’t depend on Burton after this season.
Ely Allen contributed to this post.