The Revival of Joe Burrow’s Bengals

A late-season push may not be enough to secure the team a playoff spot this season, but it’s not all doom and gloom in Cincinnati.

Burrow led the Bengals to a 24–6 win over the Browns. / Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

Three years ago, in a series of postgame phone calls, Joe Burrow sold me—and I was genuinely sold—that the concept of the same, old Cincinnati Bengals was dead. His version, he insisted, was there to stay.

Of course, the on-field product backed that up. Big time.

The 2021 group made it all the way to the Super Bowl. If not for Aaron Donald being Superman, that Bengals team would’ve won the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy. And Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, and the rest of the squad proved a year later it was no fluke, returning to the AFC title game and taking the Kansas City Chiefs back into deep water before bowing out.

So, late Sunday afternoon, after another one of those games where it looked like Burrow could do whatever he wanted, I asked the quarterback a question I figured I probably knew the answer to: Whether he thought the Bengals would be dangerous if they could somehow, after all that’s gotten them this year, find a way back into the playoffs for the first time since losing that conference championship game in Kansas City.

“I think everybody knows the answer to that,” he says.

Those eight words can go a long way in affirming what’s become obvious.

After the quarterback threw for 252 yards and touchdowns to three different receivers, logging a 134.3 passer rating, the Cincinnati defense took a step in the right direction and a Chase Brown–fueled run game produced again, the Burrow Bengals are back. They won their third consecutive game—this one 24–6 over the Cleveland Browns—to get within a game of .500, 15 games into what’s been an unbelievably uneven season.

The door for them to be that team, the one no one wants to play in January, remains ajar. But the path is narrow. First, they’ll have to beat the Denver Broncos, which would pull them within a game of Denver and give them the tiebreaker over Sean Payton’s group. Then, they’ll need to win in Week 18 and have the Broncos lose to the Chiefs (something that might require Kansas City to lose on Christmas, so the Chiefs play their starters against Denver). Then, both the Indianapolis Colts and Miami Dolphins will have to lose at least one of their final two.

If it happens, then, yes, few would argue Burrow’s point. The Bengals would be dangerous.

If it doesn’t, it sure looks like they’ll continue forward, so long as they handle what’s looming in a critical offseason the right way.

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Week 16 is one game away from being in the books, and just 33 games remain in the regular season. And we’re covering all that in The MMQB, with this week’s Takeaways bringing you …

• A look at another special day for Jayden Daniels and the new-look Washington Commanders.

• Why you need to adjust the way you look at Sam Darnold.

• Respect for the job that Mike McCarthy is doing in Dallas.

And a whole lot more.

But we’re starting with a look at the revival of Burrow’s Bengals—which may be too little, too late for this season, but shouldn’t be in the long run.

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Burrow and the Bengals have won three consecutive games, improving to 7–8 after a disappointing start to the season. / Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

This story starts with everything that’s happened since that AFC title game in January 2023. Burrow went through a contract negotiation. Chase and Tee Higgins are still in the midst of theirs. The team got beat up in some spots and old in others.

In short, the reality of how hard it is to sustain success in the NFL hit everyone head-on.

And for Burrow, that meant going through his own challenges, first with a calf injury in the summer of 2023, then with an injury to his right wrist serious enough to make a quarterback question a lot of things. The toughest part was the unknown. He did his research and couldn’t find quarterbacks (or even pitchers) who had the injury. Mostly, it was defensive linemen, who use their hands to control, and move, 300-pound blockers.

Even more frustrating was that he felt like, having just overcome the calf injury, he was playing the best football of his career in the four weeks leading up to injuring his wrist in a Thursday night game against the Baltimore Ravens.

The effects lingered into the spring and summer when he had to lean on those around him.

“I’m not sure I would say it was scary, but I was definitely venturing into the unknown and not really knowing how it’s going to feel,” he says. “You never know how it’s going to feel after every injury. And I’ve been through a ton of those. I know how to handle it. I’ve got the right people around me with my trainer and our rehab guys, physical therapists here at the Bengals. All our athletic trainers do a great job.

“I got the support system around me to get through those things and come out on the other side better.”

And sure enough, as was the case with his ACL, appendectomy (that was a little less serious) and calf injury, he found his stride again.

“That’s how these usually go,” he says. “It’s nice to have another one like that.”

What the injury didn’t do was keep Burrow from finding ways to get better.

He put on 10 to 15 pounds in the offseason to combat the injuries aggressively, with the idea being that the bulk might make him more durable. He also worked with his coaches to move better in the pocket and become more efficient off-schedule to generate bigger plays.

And with each passing day, the wrist injury moves another day back in his memory, to the point where it’s not something he thinks of much at all anymore.

“Sometimes you do,” he says. “Some days, it’s a little sore and stuff. Really, those days are few and far between.”

It’s shown in his play. With another couple of wins, he’d be right there for league MVP. Through 15 games, Burrow leads the NFL in yards (4,229) and touchdown passes (39), while ranking third in quarterback rating (108.5).

Of course, he knows he and the Bengals can’t have some of those September, October and November struggles back. So they just have to do their best with what they have now.

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Iosivas has taken a step forward, helping bolster Cincinnati's offense. / Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On Sunday, Burrow’s three touchdown passes showed the Bengals are doing just that.

The first one, on first-and-goal from the 2-yard line, midway through the first quarter, showed Burrow’s athleticism. He looked like he was borderline levitating to keep his knees off the ground, willing the ball to Higgins to give Cincinnati a 7–0 lead.

“I practice off-platform stuff like that all the time—maybe not diving on the ground parallel trying to throw,” he says. “But it is something I really work at. I didn’t pick my feet up in the pocket, so I got tripped up. Tee ran a great route. Once I got in that position, I just wanted to find a way to get it to him, because he was so open. And he was able to make a play, which was crazy."

The next two touchdowns showed how the Bengals have grown with Burrow.

The first of those came on third-and-goal from the Cleveland 6-yard line, with the score still 7–0, and the Browns hanging around. With Tyler Boyd gone, and Higgins nicked up, how the Bengals will look around Burrow and Chase has been a big story line. Second-year man Andrei Iosivas has stepped into that void, earning Burrow’s trust. That connection showed up again, with the quarterback hitting the former Princeton heptathlete in rhythm for the score.

“He continues to make big-time plays for us,” Burrow says. “He also caught a go ball late in the game on, in my opinion, the best corner in the league [Burrow’s former teammate Denzel Ward]. Teams are going to keep doubling Ja’Marr and Tee. We need guys like Andrei to step up. And he has.”

The final score brought it back to Chase, with Burrow trusting him in a free-play situation to get a shot down the left sideline. “It was just giving him a chance to go make a play, and he did a great job adjusting to the ball on the back shoulder.”

Just as the ancillary pieces are starting to fit around the stars for Cincinnati, the stars have kept taking steps forward.

Chase has 108 catches, seven more than anyone else in the league. He has 1,510 receiving yards, 123 more than his former teammate at LSU, Justin Jefferson. He has 16 touchdown catches, four more than anyone else in the league. So, he’s not just tracking to become the third wideout in 30 years to capture the receiver triple crown, it looks like could win it in a walk.

He’s achieved the feat, because, like Burrow, he’s honed the details in his game. He’s learned every receiver position inside and out. And while he’s previously suggested to coaches that they move him around, the Bengals’ personnel is now better suited to make it happen. As good as Boyd was, he was more strictly a slot. Iosivas can play inside and out, and first-year Bengal Mike Gesicki can line up almost anywhere, which has given the coaches more freedom to put Chase in different places, making him almost impossible to cover.

“I think mentally he’s taken a huge step, taken ownership of running routes in the slot, he really spearheaded us moving around with motions and shifts and putting him in so many different positions and running different routes that he’s never run before,” Burrow says. “To do all that without even practicing in training camp, you can tell how he worked on it in the offseason. He’s just one of a kind. I’m happy to be a part of it.”

And hoping, of course, that he can keep it going.

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Burrow and Chase are having landmark seasons amid the Bengals' struggles. / Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

Burrow admitted it’s frustrating, knowing how well his team is playing now, and how well they’ve played in the playoffs in the past, and that it all might not matter in a few days—because of how the early parts of the season went.

“Yeah of course it is,” he conceded. “That’s the position we put ourselves in. All we can do is go win the next two and see where things lay after that.”

That said, it caught my attention last week when Burrow went to bat for embattled defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, whose unit has struggled in a way it never has before.

It followed a pattern I’ve noticed with the quarterback this year.

And when I brought up Anarumo to Burrow, he quickly went to bat for the accomplished Bengals assistant.

“Lou is proven,” Burrow says. “We’ve had some young guys that weren’t playing great early on. Now they’re starting to make plays. Our defensive line is starting to be more disruptive. If you just go look at Lou’s track record the last couple years, this year has been tough. You can’t say anything negative about the last three, four years and what he’s done and how he’s given some of the top quarterbacks in the league problems.

“He’s a great coach, great person and a great friend.”

The larger point, I thought, was this: The Bengals still have a lot of good things going—things built over the past six seasons that should make the future bright.

Burrow’s stance on that is apparent in how he’s talked about Chase, who’s due a new contract, and one that should break all the records for receivers (even the one set by their old LSU teammate in Minnesota). It showed up a couple of weeks ago in how he talked about Higgins getting a new deal from Cincinnati as if it was a no-brainer. And, you’ll see it in how he talked about the team’s trainers and rehab staff.

So, if you ask Burrow if he wants the franchise to aggressively build on what’s been established, you won’t get an argument.

“Yeah, I’d agree with that,” he says. “We’ll find out a lot over the next couple weeks, in the position that we put ourselves in, with how guys play, and going forward, on the guys that you’ll need to count on.”

Obviously, Burrow’s at the top of that list for the Bengals. And along with the big indicators are smaller signs that he keeps getting better.

One came on the first play of the last possession of the first half Sunday. The Bengals called a play-action concept where Burrow rolled right. The Browns’ defensive call, what they refer to as “cross-dog pressure,” was about the worst thing Cincinnati could’ve faced. With white jerseys everywhere, and no clear space, Burrow somehow found a crease to climb in the pocket, pump-faked to a covered checkdown, then shoveled the ball to Drew Sample. The play picked up 12 yards, and Cincinnati kicked a field goal at the buzzer.

To the naked eye, it looked like a simple improv play. But what Burrow’s coach saw was a snap where a throwaway would’ve been fine. And somehow, with all the work he’s done on pocket movement, and being able to buy his receivers an extra tick to get open, a first down magically appeared on what looked like a live-to-play-another-down spot.

It’s how Burrow’s been playing for a while now. He feels it. Everyone else does, too.

The wrist is healed. The work’s been done. The results are obvious.

“I don’t remember who we played right before the bye week, but it really didn’t feel like I was throwing it to the best of my ability until after that, really the last four or five weeks is when I felt the best,” he says. “That’s how these injuries always go. There’s always scar tissue built up early on. As you play and as you move more, that starts to break down. You start to get your motion back. It was a process for me.

“I think I’m playing my best ball right now.”

With the core group peaking, and a young supporting cast coming together, a lot of guys in Cincinnati can make a similar claim.

It’d be a shame, of course, to see only two more games from them.

Then again, if Burrow has his way, and a few of the guys he has with him get to stick around, these Bengals should have plenty more shots to show just how different they are.