CINCINNATI — Joe Burrow is one quietly confident leader.
He knows the Bengals didn’t look very smooth on offense Sunday in a 27-16 win over the Baltimore Ravens that assured the Bengals of at least one more home game in a wild card rematch with the Ravens next weekend – and no silly coin flip.
And he knows he didn’t play his best. He completed just 25-of-42 passes for 215 yards and a touchdown. He was strip-sacked inside his own 10 in the third quarter. Perhaps his best move was scrambling for a seven-yard gain as he was about to get sacked in the first quarter.
“Missed throws I usually make. Won’t miss them again.” Joe Burrow Bengals pic.twitter.com/r8cavFghNU
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 8, 2023
But after 16 games and 18 weeks filled with emotional highs and lows, Burrow believes his teammates have the right stuff to make another Super Bowl run. The Bengals started 0-2 and it was Burrow who told everyone to “relax” because he knew things would be OK.
“I told you guys to relax and you relaxed,” Burrow joked Sunday.
Burrow was not just talking to the media in September. He was reaching out to a fan base that was concerned that last year’s Super Bowl run might have been a fluke. It wasn’t. They won the division, going 12-4, an accomplishment few considered possible at 4-4 after the 32-13 loss in Cleveland.
“We won the division, we’ve won a lot of games. We’re 12-4, so we’re right where we want to be. Obviously we would have liked for the beginning of the year to go a little different, but you never know how it’s going to shake out if things happen differently in life. We like where we’re at, excited about the playoffs. We’re going to have to play a lot better to win those games, but we know we have what it takes.
“It’s expected now. We’ve got the guys that can do it. We like the hard path,” Burrow added. “Would you have it any other way? We don’t want it easy. It’s not as satisfying.”
Remember that second half of the schedule that everyone figured would do in the Bengals? They would be facing a run of games at Tennessee, home to Kansas City, at Tampa Bay, at New England, Buffalo at home and home to Baltimore.
They didn’t blink. They didn’t lose. Even Monday night, which was a horrifically emotional night to endure, didn’t derail the Bengals from their second straight divisional title for the first time in franchise history. That’s why this team earned the right to blow off steam and turn their locker room into a night club with cigar smoke and house music.
So, if the Bengals have to go through 13-win Buffalo and 14-win Kansas City on the road to get back to the Super Bowl, that’s just the way it’s going to be.
“It’s always been the hard way for me and for a lot of guys in there,” Burrow said. “That’s just the way it is. There’s no easy path to the NFL and into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl. The harder it is, the better it’ll feel.”
Indeed, after the 0-2 start, the Bengals won four of their next six before laying an absolute egg on Halloween to fall to 4-4. They had just lost their lockdown corner in Chido Awuzie, who was enjoying a cigar at his stall after Sunday’s win over Baltimore.
Burrow isn’t worried about any window on his playoff potential with the Bengals.
“The window is my whole career,” Burrow said. “Everybody that we have in that locker room — all the coaches we have — things are going to change year-to-year, but our window is always open.”
What gives Burrow the confidence that these Bengals will always be a championship team?
“I know the guys that we have in the locker room,” Burrow said. “It’s going to change year-to-year but I’d like to think that a lot of guys in there will be around for a long time. We’ve won a lot of football, played a lot of football together. We’ve got great players in there.
“We’ve faced a lot of adversity. Guys going down, guys stepping up. Guys that maybe hadn’t played a lot of football in the past have now played a lot of football and gotten some opportunities and made the most out of them. We have guys that have been in these moments, had this experience, and know what it’s going to take these next three or four weeks.”
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) January 8, 2023
There might have been those who thought with tight end Mark Andrews, running back J.K. Dobbins and quarterbacks Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley inactive, the Bengals would roll, especially up 17-0 early in the second quarter. Maybe the Bengals could pull Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd and other starters.
“Against those guys? These AFC North games are never going to go like that,” Burrow said. “It’s going to be too close at the end. It’s too hard, too tough. That’s the way these games are.”
This was not an easy game. This was not an easy season. But still this Bengals team finished 12-4 and as Bill Parcells once famously said about his Patriots in the early 90s, “you are what your record says you are.”
But 12-4 assures you nothing once the playoffs begin. Just ask the 2015 Bengals.
If these Bengals have shown anything in the Joe Burrow era of the last two years, they can win even when Burrow isn’t at the top of his game. The significance of that cannot be overstated. Sunday, the defense forced four turnovers, scored a touchdown, picked off two passes and stripped a wide receiver of the ball late in the game to seal the win.
Drue Chrisman had a pair of critical punts over 50 yards that pinned the Ravens inside the 10, including one that led to a game-changing defensive touchdown.
“That’s the sign of a great football team,” Burrow told me. “\We’ve got coaches that really understand what we’re trying to do. They game plan really, really hard. I know the kind of time they put in, so it gives me a lot of confidence to go out there and execute the plan the way it’s supposed to be executed. All year, our defense steps up when we’re not stepping up and we step up when they’re not. Drue punted the shit out of the ball today, so that was fun to see.”
What will be really fun for Bengals fans to see is their team repeat their Super Bowl run – no matter the difficulty – with Joe Burrow leading the charge.
