Joe Burrow Should Lean Into Being a Bengal Part 1

BY ADAM GREENE

If you have a Cincinnati Bengals fan in your life, then you know the last couple of weeks have been a time of panic and intrigue, fever, delirium and cold sweats. It could be over the team’s presumptive 2020 quarterback Joe Burrow or it could be the coronavirus. There’s no way to tell.

Here’s the gist of the story in case you’ve managed to miss it as you don’t follow or care about anything to do with the NFL franchise in Cincinnati. Burrow, the presumptive (and he should be) No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL Draft hasn’t seemed as excited to join the team in recent interviews. In fact, he’s said things like this on The Dan Patrick Show before the Super Bowl…

“You want to go No. 1, but you also want to go to a great organization that’s committed to winning Super Bowls.”

“Great organization?” “Committed to winning?”

I don’t know why Burrow would feel the Bengals, who haven’t won a playoff game since 1990 and have one of the four worst front offices in the NFL, wouldn’t click those two boxes. It just doesn’t make sense.

Here’s the thing. There’s a reason teams get the No. 1 overall pick and it’s not because they were “committed to winning” or “great organizations.” A disaster has happened and it’s finally blown up the team.

Still, all it takes is a change in culture, coach and quarterback and suddenly you’re a whole new franchise.

Burrow is apparently training with Jordan Palmer, a former Bengal himself and brother to Carson Palmer. Big brother Carson’s disdain for Cincy is well known. He “retired” in 2011 to never play a down for them again and was packed off to the Oakland Raiders before the trade deadline.

Carson didn’t believe the Bengals were “all-in” on a championship.

“That’s why I wanted out,” Palmer told CBS Sports Radio. “I never felt like the organization was really trying to win a Super bowl and really chasing a Super Bowl.”

He ended up in Arizona and had a nice bookend to a largely forgettable career. But we’ll get back to that.

Li’l bro Jordan, I would guess, shares his brother’s opinion on the Bengals in spite of the fact that the team tossed him a back up job for three years just to make his big brother happy. Are you really going to take career advice from a guy that has thrown just 18 passes in the NFL in his life?

Here’s the thing about Carson’s critique of the Bengals. If they weren’t “All-In” back when he was there, he was a big part of that. He got knocked out of his first playoff game in 2005, but in 2009 he had a shot at home facing a Mark Sanchez quarterbacked and Rex Ryan coached New York Jets team and promptly posted a 58.3 passer rating.

The year he decided he was done with Cincy because they weren’t trying to win a championship they drafted A.J. Green at No. 1 for him to throw the ball to and Andy Dalton in the second round to back him up in case he went down with an injury again (as he would for the rest of his career). Say what you will about the Bengals and Mike Brown, but those weren’t draft moves from a team not trying to win.

We’ll get to the solution for the Bengals and Burrow in Part 2.

Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter!

BetOnline.ag on Instagram–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!