Former Bengals O.C. Brian Callahan on Joe Burrow: "If I Had a Vote, He'd Be My MVP"

Jay Morrison | 5 Hours Ago

Nov 24, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Tennessee Titans head coach Brian Callahan looks up from the sideline during the third quarter against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images / Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

CINCINNATI – No one outside of Paycor Stadium knows the skillsets of and dynamic between Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase than former offensive coordinator Brian Callahan.

And no one is less surprised by the numbers they are posting this season.

“As crazy as it sounds, they keep getting better. Both of them,” Callahan said Wednesday, a few days before his Tennessee Titans face the Bengals in Nashville.

After watching what the Bengals did Monday night in Dallas, Callahan said Burrow deserves to be called the best player in the league with the way he’s performed this season, and Chase isn’t too far behind,

“I think Joe's playing the position as good as anybody in the NFL right now. If I had a vote, he'd be my MVP,” Callahan said. “I can't see anyone playing quarterback playing better than he is right now.”

“And then Ja'Marr, he just continues to do things that everyone though he could do, and then he does something more,” he continued. “Their performance has been incredible. We've got to find a way to try to keep a lid on as much of it as we can.”

During the 2022 season, Callahan handed Burrow and Chase a picture of the two players smiling and asked them to autograph it for them.

“I told them at some point I'll look back and they'll both be in the Hall of Fame, and I'll get to say I was a part of their journey,” Callahan said. “They've only gotten better. It's fun to watch and terrifying to get ready for.”

Getting a 3-10 team prepared to face one of the best offenses in the leagues has kept Callahan from feeling too nostalgic this week.

But a 15-minute conference call with the Cincinnati media had Callahan revisiting his five years with the Bengals and what they meant to him, especially when it comes to head coach Zac Taylor.

Callahan said the job Taylor did in his first season in 2019, when the Bengals went 2-14, was one of the best coaching performances he’s ever seen.

“Zac’s vision, he saw from the get-go what he wanted it to look like and he never wavered from it and in the midst of all the challenges and all the things that don't go your way,” Callahan said. “The losing wears on you, but he never let it wear on him. He was always consistent. He knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it to look, and he stayed at that process.

“That first year was really impressive,” he added. “That's the most impressive coaching job I think I've been around in terms of you don't get anything for it, it's a 2-14 season, but I think that laid the groundwork for all the things that have happened there since and I thought it was just so consistent, so impressive in terms of that stuff.”

Below are some of the other highlights from the 15-minute conversation with Callahan.

On the steady stream of players that will be eager to say hello to him during pregame Sunday:

“I hope guys want to come say hello. I do miss a lot of those guys. I enjoyed being around them. I'll probably go out a little bit earlier and try to knock some of that stuff out before. And when the game starts, we’re going to try to beat each other. I mean, Joes gonna want to throw for 500 yards and five touchdowns, I’m sure.”

On the biggest misconception people have about Taylor:

“The one thing that I don't think anybody really understands is how incredibly competitive he is. He is probably one of the most competitive people I've ever been around. He wants to win at everything all the time and he's incredibly driven to do so and that part of his personality, you don't always get to see because his demeanor is so consistent. But underneath that is a cold-hearted competitive person. I don't know that anybody really gets it, but trust me, it's there.

“If you ever want to know anything about Zach, go watch him play football. When he was in college, he was tough, competitive. He was really impressive to watch play, and those are all the things that he is now, and it's all served him very well.”

On not trying to build a team in Tennessee the way Taylor did in Cincinnati:

“The blueprint can't necessarily be followed. It's kind of the same for all these teams that you see, Detroit and San Francisco, everybody's got their own path, and we're going to have our own path. There's a lot of lessons and parallels to building football teams and how we did things in Cincinnati, but yeah, there's no Joe Burrow waiting for me. Although I hope the result is the same and that we build a competitive football team that's in a contending mode for a long time and there are similarities there. That part I do try to mirror. But how and where we get there are both are very, very different processes that ultimately aren't going to mirror each other a whole lot when it comes to that.”

On what he misses most about living in Cincinnati:

“I'll be honest, I miss the people. We had a lot of good friends there. Any time in the NFL you're somewhere for five years, that's dang near an eternity for NFL coaches. We definitely had a lot of great friends there, great people we enjoyed being around. I know my kids miss their friends, and so it's a place that I see myself probably returning to frequently as I get time. So it's a great place, and we really loved living there.”

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