There is something remarkable about Joe Burrow. Call it an aura, call it swagger, call it what you want. In the abstract, talk of an ‘it factor’ feels like a whole lot of blathering to explain the unexplainable: His Cincinnati team playing above their understood talent level. And then you watch the games, and you see it: Tough to identify; impossible to ignore.
Burrow has rejuvenated a sorry Cincinnati franchise who, up until the quarterback’s arrival in 2020, had laid their claim to fame as being the cheapest, most stable presence in the league. They rarely hit rock bottom, lows were always accompanied by flashes that the good times were around the corner: The heady days of the Carson Palmer-Chad Johnson era; five-straight trips to the playoffs (and five-straight losses) behind Marvin Lewis, Andy Dalton, and a stacked roster.
There have been smatterings of success, but the Bengals have rarely been Fun. When Johnson rechristened himself as Chad Ochocinco the team briefly flirted with the idea that football could be about more than just getting by. But the fetishization of mediocrity has been the overriding principle of the 33 years of Mike Brown’s ownership. Hitting .500 is enough, the playoffs are a bonus.
Burrow walking through the door changed everything. You will struggle to find another team so disconnected from the scars of their past. The Bengals have that delightful sense of a good-not-great team a couple of years ahead of schedule. There’s none of the bitterness of tough playoff losses or the pain of years of toil. They’re young, fun, fearless.
It’s a franchise that now oozes charisma; whose quarterback sports a monogrammed, diamond-encrusted chain; whose kicker delivers one-liners before drilling game-clinching kicks; whose gaggle of young stars gather for victory cigars after each playoff win.
Their quarterback’s own story is now well-documented: the former four-star recruit from Ohio who went to Ohio State to represent the Buckeyes, was beaten out by Dwayne Haskins, transferred to LSU, then – boom! – lift-off. Burrow led the Tigers to a national title in his second season, serving as the conductor for what is widely regarded as the finest offense in the modern history of college football. He won the Heisman Trophy too. He took an LSU team that had been inconsistent before his arrival (and collapsed as soon as he left) to heights that even one of the game’s great programs had yet to scale.
It’s been the same story in Cincinnati: Burrow arrived when the team had hit a low, a two-win season that secured the first overall pick in the draft and a chance to bring Burrow back to Ohio. Within two seasons, he has taken them to the Super Bowl.
At first glance, Burrow has done all of that without an obvious [cliché klaxon] – elite, physical skill set. Run through the list of young quarterbacks who have elevated into the upper tier in the NFL in recent years. All of them have a defining physical trait: Lamar Jackson has speed; Josh Allen, Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes have their size and arm strength.
Not Burrow. His superpower is his pocket mobility, that prescient sense for when to slip and slide, to evade the pass-rush, to extend plays, and to find open men down the field. Pair that with uncommon down-the-field accuracy and smarts, surround him with playmakers like Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd and CJ Uzomah, and – hey presto – you have yourself an explosive offense.
A reminder: Burrow is doing all of this behind one of the league’s most porous offensive lines. The Bengals ranked 28th in pressure rate this season, a statistic that usually sends a team tumbling to the top of the draft, not the Super Bowl. The line was bad enough last year that there were calls for the Bengals to bench Burrow before he got hurt and threatened the future of his franchise, a season in which he ended up tearing his ACL. Things aren’t much easier for him this season. At the right guard spot alone, Cincy has gifted 48 pressures over the course of the season.
And perhaps Burrow has another superpower: an unusual ability to connect with others. At LSU, his coaches viewed him as a partner in all of the key decisions and gameday playcalls. They ditched the usual top-down player-coach dynamic and viewed the relationship with Burrow more as a partnership.
That same connection has extended to his fanbase and the wider football-watching world. Maybe it’s that innate ability to straddle the line between cool and dork. Maybe it’s the JB9 jeweled pendant … or the cigars … or that coat … or the quiet, assured confidence … or the seeming effortlessness of his excellence.
It’s important to note that the rest of the Cincy roster isn’t just along for the ride. The Bengals defense is as advertised: Savvy, splashy, ultra-confident, the players comfortable in their own skin, and a pain to play against. The skill positions surrounding the quarterback are loaded.
Still: This is Burrow’s team and Burrow’s story. Only five quarterbacks have won the Super Bowl with the team that drafted them No1 overall in the modern era – including Eli Manning who was part of a draft-day trade. On average, those titles came in the quarterback’s seventh season with the franchise. Being drafted first overall is a recognition of a player’s talent – and it’s also a burden. Teams select first overall because they stink. Their roster is flimsy, the culture rotten.
It takes time to turn a failed team around. To hit on the right coaches. To build the right scheme around the right players. To cobble together enough talented players to make a playoff run. It requires hitting on the draft and free agency year-after-year amid roster churn; an aspect made more difficult in the salary-cap era. In fact, of the quarterbacks selected first overall in that era, only two have gone on to win the Super Bowl with the team that selected them – both happened to have the surname Manning.
Scaling that mountain is supposed to be hard; Burrow has made it look easy.
If Burrow leads the Bengals to the title on Sunday, he will become only the third quarterback in the history of the league to win a national championship in college and a Super Bowl. Nobody has hit for the quadruple crown: Winning the title and the Heisman trophy in college, being selected first overall in the draft, and then winning it all in the pros. Burrow is on the verge of conquering all four inside of three years.
“I think if you told me before the season we would go to the Super Bowl, I would have called you crazy,” Burrow said after the AFC title game. Crazy to him, perhaps. But it shouldn’t be to anyone else. This is who Burrow is: Everywhere he goes, he wins – and wins big.
The Bengals have not been a championship organization in the modern era. At times, it’s felt like they’ve been playing a different sport to everyone else, with different goals. They’ve won in spurts, often despite their own team-building principles.
Now, they have the most important ingredient in a championship roster: A franchise quarterback, in every sense. Burrow and the Bengals have arrived. And they’re not leaving anytime soon.
