CINCINNATI -- The Bengals and Joe Burrow are under attack.

Just two weeks into a season in which they started 2-0 for the first time under Zac Taylor, the sky is falling entering Week 3.

The results may change in Cincinnati, but the criticism remains the same in the immediate aftermath of Burrow's latest surgery for a turf toe injury that will keep him out at least three months.

The accusations fly from all corners of the media spectrum.

Cincinnati is committing organizational malpractice by not protecting the franchise quarterback, they say.

The line of thought isn't wrong, but it also isn't so simple.

Taylor has never run from being the most pass-heavy offense in football. He's never vowed to do anything other than play to the strengths of his star quarterback. He keeps the ball in his hands, he keeps him in shotgun, he lets his elite processing take over, often with the minimum protection, and allows him to play the position with freedom.

It produces magic. And MVP conversation. Weekly.

"I don't think there was anyone playing better than I was," Burrow said in January.

Yet, half of his NFL seasons have now been shortened by surgery.

Now Burrow gets hurt again. The pitchforks return.

"I get it, I understand where people are going to come from," Taylor said Monday. "It's going to be very attacking of us and our style of play that's got us to a Super Bowl and an AFC Championship and two division titles and won a lot of games for us. We are always evaluating how we can protect our players and put them in the best position possible. I take accountability for that. If people want to blame me for putting him in a position, I'm fine taking that. We'll continue to put the best plan forward to put Jake (Browning) in a great position to go help us beat Minnesota."

None of this is about Minnesota, of course. It's barely about the play that ruptured ligaments in Burrow's toe.

This conversation is about questioning the Bengals' entire organizational philosophy, execution and decision-making in regards to protecting Burrow.

All this after an innocuous quick-game call ended in the unthinkable.

"It's a really unfortunate outcome to a standard football play," offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. "I wish it didn't happen. I feel terrible for Joe. It's a football play."

This was a football play that elicited a bigger football question: Are the Bengals responsible for breaking Burrow?

"Yesterday needs to change the Bengals' organizational philosophy for the remainder of Joe Burrow's time," former NFL quarterback and NFL Live analyst Dan Orlovsky said Monday.

Criticism is more than fair. Deserved. But passing shots on the offensive line deserve more nuance. There doesn't have to be one culprit in this unfortunate series of injury events.

There are many truths at play here.

Truth: The Bengals have never put a great offensive line in front of Burrow despite continued draft and financial investments.

Truth: The organization opted to keep Tee Higgins for $30 million per year this offseason largely because that's what Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase wanted. That decision limited the money available to invest more in the trenches.

Truth: The Bengals should have been more prepared and found ways to aggressively fix the guard spots in free agency, even while paying the receivers.

Truth: Three of the four major injuries in Burrow's career weren't directly related to a substantial hit on the quarterback and were sustained in the most standard football plays.

Truth: Burrow wants to play a unique style of football that makes him who he is while also inviting more hits on him. The head coach, in turn, wants to call an offense that feeds to Burrow's strengths, which invites more hits on him.

Truth: It's now fair to call Burrow injury-prone.

All of these statements can be true at once. All these statements share a portion of the blame and independently offer their own set of explanations.

None of them would be discussed if there wasn't a fluke rupture of the ligament that hasn't happened to an NFL quarterback this century, according to a study conducted by Harvard Medical School. An incredible turn of events considering no NFL quarterback had suffered the wrist ligament injury that ended up Burrow's 2023 campaign.

"It's unfortunate that this happened, but again, that's part of football and that's what's going to happen," Taylor said. "Guys are in the pocket, guys are moving around. I don't know how a turf toe injury fully happens. How you got to get hit or stepped on. I know potentially he could have been clean for 99 percent of the game and the one play is where this happens."

The trouble arrives in the volume. Taylor and the Bengals rank second in the NFL in neutral pass rate since Burrow entered the league in 2020. Only Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs are higher.

"I think we've built this team organizationally and we've devoted resources to what we think makes us one of, we believe, the most explosive, best passing offenses in football," Pitcher said. "And I think over the course of time, we've shown that we at least belong in that conversation. There is risk. No matter what you choose to do, you are going to incur risk. We have special skill players. We want to accentuate those skill players. We try to do both things."

Burrow prefers to play in shotgun. He prefers to not turn his back to the defense. He prefers more receivers out in the route so he can quickly find the open man, leaving fewer in to block. This philosophy plays to his strengths as arguably the best processor in the game. When you toss in his willingness to create off-script plays amid the chaos, it piles on punishment.

Orlovsky said Burrow is becoming "this generation's Andrew Luck." The answer across most conversations would be, well, that makes sense. Look at the punishment this man has taken over the course of his career. He led the Bengals to the Super Bowl in 2021 but was nearly decapitated in the process.

That offensive line in the Super Bowl had just one player who would manage multiple NFL starts after that year. Two of them never played another down.

The comparisons to Luck started then and grow louder every time a new injury occurs.

Those comparisons are noted, but as the game evolves, you can see where Burrow ranks in recent years. This isn't about rates of hits or sacks. This comes back to the volume.

There are stats for every side of the argument. The Bengals haven't ranked outside the bottom six in pass-rush win rate on the offensive line for any season of Burrow's career, as ESPN's Adam Schefter tweeted like an arrow directly into the hearts of Bengals fans everywhere Monday morning.

They played with fire by not spending to properly fill the guard spot in free agency, and now the organization is burning. Yet, to add nuance, this was the first offseason where there was a sense of neglect.

In 2022, they jumped out first in free agency to sign Alex Cappa and Ted Karras. Both were solid. They have extended Karras twice. They spent a first-round pick on Amarius Mims. It was a good choice.

They made one of the biggest splashes of free agency in 2023, inking Orlando Brown. They have supplemented paying serviceable veterans like La'el Collins and Riley Reiff on one-year deals when necessary. When the play and development weren't good enough, they jettisoned offensive line coach Frank Pollack and brought in Scott Peters.

They also ranked in the top third of the league in cap dollars dedicated to the offensive line from 2022-'24.

They've spent to protect Burrow. One, it hasn't always worked out. Two, they probably have the toughest jobs of any offensive line in football.

Back in June, Pitcher admitted he spent nearly every day this offseason thinking about finding ways to stay explosive while lessening the number of hits placed on Burrow. At a certain point, however, letting Burrow be himself requires inheriting the risk of playing a wide-open brand of offense and understanding he'll often be holding the ball to make big plays.

Those plays are what set Burrow apart from so many others. Is it advisable to suppress that skill?

"How do you tell him to turn it on one play and off another play?" Pitcher said. "How do you know that that's not the play that decides the game? These are all really hard decisions, and they're all, when you have a talented player and that's part of his play style and you're playing a contact sport, yeah, I wish it didn't happen. If you would've told me that was going to happen before the play started, we would've called a different, if I had a crystal ball, sure, we would've done something different, but it's just part of the risk of football."

On Sunday, the risk bit Burrow and the Bengals again. We'll see if Burrow returns before the offseason does, but whenever those decisions come up again, the Bengals will need to figure out how they go forward with him, how they go forward with the offensive line and how they view the organizational philosophy about protecting him.

The answer isn't as simple as spending more money or draft capital on offensive linemen -- though, that's not an awful place to start -- as much as some would wish it to be.

This will also be about understanding that they do have a player whose injury history will now be a part of his story for the duration of his career, no matter how many healthy seasons he stacks.

This will be about Burrow's assessment of how he can alter his game and the coaching staff figuring out how their play style and Burrow's magic can better co-exist.

This will be about dealing with a player who turns 30 next season and whose clock keeps ticking louder.

How many more times can Bengals risk Joe Burrow before it's too late?