Hey everyone! With another Sunday filled with NFL football right around the corner, it’s time for my next bold take.
Here it is: QB Joe Burrow will win a Super Bowl with the Cincinnati Bengals one day.
By no means do I believe the Bengals are nearing Super Bowl contention, or that this will occur under the current regime. However, I believe Burrow will join the select ring of quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl and lead the team that drafted him to glory one day. HC Zac Taylor’s coaching has been largely unimpressive to me, and I have disagreed with GM Duke Tobin’s drafting, including selecting WR Ja’Marr Chase over T Penei Sewell despite the offensive line’s struggles.
Despite the team’s 3-1 start to this season, I expect this team to stall in the next few years, and for ownership to realize at that point that Burrow is being held back. Given that I see Burrow as a clear franchise quarterback, I think that the Bengals head coaching and general manager jobs will be highly attractive when they eventually open up. That is when I see the window for Burrow to win a Super Bowl to start.
I am making this claim for several reasons. First, I have been impressed with Burrow’s performance in the league thus far, as he was in a tight race with QB Justin Herbert for Offensive Rookie of the Year until he went down with an ACL tear, and has rebounded from that major injury quite well with a solid start to the 2021 season. Coming out of LSU, when the Bengals made Burrow the first overall pick of the 2020 NFL Draft, I gave Burrow a 1.1 grade, indicative of an early first round grade and a firm belief that he was a surefire franchise quarterback. Even if he hasn’t immediately burst onto the scene as a top NFL quarterback, his play thus far and especially in the context of recovering from a significant knee injury has inspired me to keep the same confidence in his ability and potential that I had when I originally scouted him.
Now, what really makes me believe he will win a Super Bowl, is the manner in which he led LSU to a national championship in 2020, including his path to Baton Rouge. Burrow started his college career at Ohio State, redshirting his freshman year and then spending two years as the backup to QB J.T. Barrett. He was then beat out by QB Dwayne Haskins for the starting job in 2018, and decided to transfer to be able to be the QB1 of a team elsewhere. In his first year as LSU’s starting quarterback, Burrow led the team to a 10-3 record, playing well but not spectacularly. He was seen as a potential mid-late round pick in the NFL Draft, and very few people predicted what was yet to come for Burrow and the Tigers.
In 2019, Burrow walked on water. LSU went undefeated in the regular season with four wins against top ten opponents, and proceeded to win the national championship. Burrow had one of the greatest single seasons in college football history, winning the Heisman trophy and College Football Playoff MVP award. In addition to the resilience it took Burrow to reach this point in his football journey, what stood out the most to me were the reports that emerged following the team’s unexpected championship run. It was said that Burrow, despite the fact that LSU was not seen as a potential national championship contender, instilled such belief into the team that in February of 2019, the whole program believed they were going to win the national title eleven months later.
Burrow is an exemplary leader, and I believe that one year, the pieces will fall into place to support him for the Bengals, and he will, with his on-field talent and his leadership, win a Super Bowl in Cincinnati. Could he win one elsewhere instead? It’s possible, but I would be shocked if the Bengals ever let him leave Cincinnati. Burrow will be a Super Bowl winning quarterback one day, and Cincinnati will rejoice.
Sources
- Cover Image: https://www.cincyjungle.com/2021/10/3/22705167/bengals-news-joe-burrow-2021-nfl-playoffs
Edited By: Rupayan “Abs” Samanta.
