Bengals left tackle Andrew Whitworth missed the opener because of the knee injury that left him on the sideline for the entire preseason.
Because he missed the preseason, that wasn’t a tremendous surprise. The fact that he wasn’t ready was somewhat surprising, however, since Whitworth said more than once in the offseason that his knee was doing great after having arthroscopic knee surgery in February. As it turns out, Whitworth had to have a second procedure on his left knee in August and that set the recovery back enough to make Whitworth a spectator against the Bears.
“I had a little re-injury and we set the timeline all over, got that situation fixed and now we’re close to being back to ready,” Whitworth said, via Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It was a totally different episode that caused another injury because you’re already dealing with something that already has been worked on. The quicker you go post-procedure, you’re endangering yourself, so we had to give ourselves a little time to heal and as soon as we’re ready, we’re ready.”
The Bengals haven’t ruled Whitworth out for Monday night’s game against the Steelers, but they haven’t given him clearance to return to work either so his status remains up in the air. Anthony Collins started for Whitworth last week and he’d be in the lineup again this week if Whitworth isn’t able to play