Bengals Beat: Bengals Have Done The Unthinkable To Joe Burrow, Bengals Organizational Incompetence Again On Full Display

CINCINNATI — The Bengals have done the unthinkable – they’ve killed the Golden Goose.

Joe Burrow, the man drafted No. 1 overall in 2020 to save the Bengals, is a dead man walking inside Paycor Stadium. The fans see it. The coaches know it. His teammates can feel it.

Remember Carson Palmer’s warning? Remember Andrew Whitworth’s cautionary tale? Burrow, following Sunday’s 24-0 loss to the Ravens, suddenly felt and sounded a lot more like Palmer in 2010 and less like the Burrow in 2023 that signed his $275 million extension. On Wednesday, Burrow sounded beaten. On Sunday, he was beaten into the frozen ground by the Ravens.

“So much respect for you, man,” a sympathetic Ravens coach John Harbaugh told Burrow at midfield at the game.

Despite Sunday’s shutout, Burrow, by no means, is to blame for the Bengals downfall this season. The next-to-last defense in the NFL is. But Sunday, Burrow, unlike the front office and ownership, took full responsibility.

“When your quarterback plays like that, your team is not going to have a chance to win,” I’m obviously disappointed in my play today, so I have to be better,” Burrow said after the first shutout loss of his career.

About those comments Wednesday about not having fun playing football — does he still enjoy playing football for the Bengals?

“My comments had nothing to do with Cincinnati,” Burrow said. “They had everything to do with me and my mindset, and football.”

In other words, he loves playing for the fans of Cincinnati. But he is growing tired of carrying the load for a franchise that has no intention of investing in sustaining Super Bowl-caliber excellence, like, you know, hiring a general manager or build a legitimate scouting department. Oh, those pesky little details.

But the ownership and front office? They’ll probably write it off as one bad game. But Joe Burrow doesn’t act and play like he did this week without it carrying added significance and setting off alarm bells.

Burrow is sick and tired of doing everything he can to get back ready to play a month ahead of schedule and watch the Bengals front office clown around and not know how to build a defense or bring in veteran leaders to help Burrow lead the locker room. But God bless Burrow for still defending those still in the front office and the scouting department. He’s not about to throw anyone under the bus, not publicly at least

“Because I know how hard people work at it and we’ve got the right people,” Burrow said. “It starts with players playing better and today it was me.”

No one knows Burrow any better than Ja’Marr Chase, and it was Chase that offered some emotional support Sunday.

“I’ve known Joe for a long time,” Chase said. “I know what he’s capable of. I know when he’s off, I know when he’s on, and I need to find a way to help him if he’s off. I’ve got to be there for him and encourage him. You know what I’m saying? Just do what I can for him.”

Like?

“I’ve never been in this situation where I have to uplift him, but going forward I might need to,” Chase said. “He does it to me at the end of the day. You never know what he might be going through, so I might need to start doing that.”

Joe Burrow has given everything he had to get back on the field. He won his first game back, 32-14. But he can only do so much and his dreams have been crushed by a front office that has displayed no ability to build a competitive playoff-caliber roster or draft competently in the last four seasons. He would be right to feel betrayed by the front office, kinda like the Bengals fans who showed up Sunday to ice and snow on their seats and were politely expected to clean them off themselves.

As for the Eagles in Philadelphia, who have two Vince Lombardis in the trophy case, they somehow found a way to clear off several inches of snow from the seats at Lincoln Financial Sunday before their 1 p.m. game against the Raiders.

When it comes to expectations in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, the two teams might as well be in different universes.

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman would never commit the football malpractice that the Bengals have. When you have been gifted a generational quarterback, you surround him with a team to give him a chance to win multiple championships. Ask Brett Veach in Kansas City or Les Snead with the Rams or Brandon Beane with the Bills.

The Bengals toss Joe Burrow out there with Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins and say, “Go win us 10 games, Joe and get us into the playoffs and find a way to get the Super Bowl.”

On Sunday, Burrow was blanked for the first time in 74 NFL starts. He made mistakes you don’t ever see from Burrow, like not picking up blitzes, throwing the ball high off receivers hands or taking sacks that take his team out of field goal range. He was 25-of-39 for 225 yards and two interceptions.

The Bengals have fallen back into embarrassing territory. Their football incompetence that Burrow masked for four years has once again reared its ugly head.

The general consensus around Cincinnati was that as along the Bengals have Joe Burrow, he’ll erase most of the mistakes on the field – and off. It was perhaps for this reason that the front office didn’t upgrade its safety room, or relied on two rookie starting safeties or played hardball with Trey Hendrickson and did nothing in free agency to upgrade its defensive end room. They had one of the worst offseasons in the NFL in terms of addressing their defense.

That’s OK. We’ve got Joe Shiesty. He’ll help us win games, 48-42, 39-38, 39-34. Well, just the opposite happened. The Bengals are one of the worst complementary football teams in the NFL. The Bengals lost to the winless Jets. The Bengals blew a late lead at home to the Bears. They self-destructed against the Steelers on the road. They couldn’t protect a 10-point lead late against the Bills.

Why has it been so difficult?

“Because we haven’t been a good football team. Bad football teams do losing things,” Burrow acknowledged after Sunday’s If you’re wanting to compete for championships and be in the playoffs, then number one, your quarterback needs to play better than I did today.”

Maybe all of this leads to the firing of head coach Zac Taylor. There are a number of coaching candidates who would love to come in and take their chance at coaching one of the brightest quarterbacks in the game. But let’s be brutally honest, unless the Bengals change the semi-pro way they run their franchise, the end result is almost always going to be the same as it has for the last 50 years and counting. What’s that definition of insanity again?

“If I had a say-so, it would probably be something,” Ja’Marr Chase said. “But I can only control what I can control.”

From the gate snafus that delayed fans outside in the frigid cold to the ice and snow left on the seats when fans finally got into the stadium to the quarterback who looked as defeated as his team, Sunday was – sadly – the perfect way to clinch a third non-playoff season.

It’s enough to depress anyone.