Brandon Joiner clears waivers and heads to Injured Reserve

The Cincinnati Bengals completed a series of transactions on Tuesday, shifting pieces to respective injury classes as the league-mandated 75-man roster approached. One of those was an easy decision. During practice last week, Brandon Joiner collapsed during 11-on-11 and rolled around on the turf in obvious pain. It was the type of injury that when you watched, you knew that he was done.

Cincinnati placed Joiner on the waiver/injured list, which is procedural for younger players. Teams will have the option to claim that player, and if there's multiple claims, the draft order from the 2013 NFL draft is essentially used. Considering that the player is heading to season-ending IR, there's usually no shot of another team stealing that player anyway.

On Wednesday, the team announced that he cleared waivers and now will be placed on the team's Injured Reserve. Joiner is the third player on IR, joining Sean Porter (torn shoulder labrum) and Larry Black (dislocated ankle). Comparatively speaking, Cincinnati had already placed five players on IR at this point last year.