Joe Burrow Deserves Better Than The Cincinnati Bengals

“If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing this,” Burrow said. “I have been through a lot. If it’s not fun, then what am I doing it for? That is the mindset I am trying to bring to the table.

“There are just a lot of things going on right now. A lot of things going on.”

Burrow was asked whether these were football things, or personal things.

“All of the above."

Burrow got deeper into the football part as he surveyed the overall view.

“Certainly, the last two weeks have shown me a lot,” Burrow said of his return to the field. “I’m just happy to be out there. We want to win games, and be in the playoffs, and do everything that we say we are capable of doing. But when I came back, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. We were 3-8 at that point, and that’s certainly not a playoff-caliber position to be in.”

And then, Burrow dropped the bomb.

“I think I’ve been through more than most. Certainly not easy on the brain or the body, so just trying to have fun doing it again.”

Burrow and the Bengals followed all of that up with a 24-0 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in which Burrow completed 25 of 39 passes for 225 yards with two interceptions and a 58.2 passer rating. Per Next Gen Stats, this marked the second-lowest passer rating in an NFL start for Burrow, and the first time he has thrown an interception returned for a touchdown in consecutive games. This also represented the first time Burrow's team had been shut out in a start since his LSU Tigers were blanked 29-0 by Alabama on November 3, 2018.

After that disaster, you may have heard some commentators saying that Burrow looked "disinterested" on the field, which I believe is an example of taking his comments too far into his game. Burrow was far from perfect against the Ravens, but he had precious little help around him — from his teammates, and from the officials. Brad Allen's crew (yes, THAT Brad Allen) seemed to be okay with the idea that Baltimore's defenders could legally get to Burrow's targets before the ball did.

Now, the Bengals were getting historic in all the worst ways.

The Ravens' pick-six was an interesting combination of the Bengals' own mistakes, and how Baltimore's defense had things on lock. This happened with 7:55 left in the game, and the Ravens already up, 17-0.

While the Bengals were in a 3x1 set and trying to get their receivers open in and near the end zone from the Baltimore seven-yard line, the Ravens were dealing up a "Spot the Huckleberry" sim pressure that would foil Cincinnati's plans. The Ravens had a seven-man pressure look pre-snap, but at the snap, edge-rusher Kyle Van Noy and defensive tackle Travis Jones dropped into coverage. Left guard Dylan Fairchild (the Huckleberry in this case) was fixated on Van Noy at the snap, and when Van Noy dropped, Fairchild was late getting to Tavius Robinson, who was the one rushing through the gap. This was especially disconcerting, because you could see Fairchild and left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. communicating their assignments pre-snap, and it appeared that they knew Van Noy wasn't going to be there.

Burrow tried to hit tight end Mike Gesicki on the shallow cross, but with Robinson coming through unblocked, Burrow threw the ball to Van Noy, who handed it to safety Alohi Gilman for the 95-yard score.

One issue that has cursed Burrow in his six seasons with the Bengals is that they're still trying to put a functional offensive line together. Even in the team's best Burrow-led season of 2021, when they came within three points of tying the Los Angeles Rams in Super LVI, the Bengals allowed the NFL's most sacks with 42, and the NFL's second-most total pressures with 228, ahead of only the Miami Dolphins' 235. Once upon a time, Burrow was rightly lionized for his ability to transcend his own front five, but no matter how good you are, those hits add up over time.

Which leads us to Burrow's injury history. He's played every game in a season just three times in six attempts, and nobody his age should have already won the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year award as Burrow did in 2021 and 2024.

2021 was also a season in which the Bengals reached the Super Bowl despite a defense that was middle of the pack, ranking 16th in DVOA, 17th in points allowed, and 18th in yards allowed. 2022 was the only season in which Burrow had an above-average defense to help him, and since then, those defenses have fallen off several cliffs. Over the last two seasons, Cincinnati has scored 30 or more points in 14 games, and they've lost as many as they've won — seven each.

When you put that much pressure on your offense, things are going to disassemble.

“I want everything on my plate," Burrow said after the Ravens loss. "That’s the position I want to be in. I feel confident in all those guys in the locker room. Like I said, there’s not a team in the NFL that would’ve won the game today if I was the quarterback.”

True, but the problem with wanting everything on your plate is that, at a certain point, the thing will start to capsize at both sides like a paper plate at the best barbecue you've ever attended.

The Bengals were asked about their situational football acumen following the Ravens game, and what head coach Zac Taylor said when asked why Burrow was still in the game when the score was way out of hand was... revealing.

"We just ended [a drive with a] pick-six," Taylor said. "We didn’t give [backup] Joe Flacco any time to warm up in zero-degree temperature, basically. So, we tried to manage it — just hand the ball off, or quick-game things that would keep [Burrow] out of harm's way. Obviously, a tough spot to be in. I'd say if it was anything other than zero degrees, we probably would have quickly made the change and forego the warmup. But again, just tried, as we called it, to keep him out of harm's way. With just any throw we made, that ball was coming out quick.”

A team that hasn't made the postseason in three years spiraling out of control. A quarterback wired for winning who's seen more and more that his franchise doesn't have the consistent ability to create it. Yes, Joe Burrow is frustrated, and yes, he has every right to be. What happens in the future is up to the future, but at this point, Burrow's words seem to be more than the effects of temporary malaise.

It may be close to the end for player and team, and there are times when that simply makes all the sense in the world.