The Cincinnati Bengals are fresh off their second consecutive 9-8 finish in the AFC North, though it’s hard to fault any of the team’s key offensive players for their lack of recent success.
The team made it a priority this offseason to keep that core in place, signing wide receivers Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase to a pair of lucrative contract extensions, with Chase’s deal setting a new high-water mark for the receiver market.
Those deals, combined with quarterback Joe Burrow’s five-year, $275 million contract, means the Bengals will be paying their “Big 3” skill players a whopping $125 million per year going forward.
However, according to one NFL analyst, the Cincinnati would never have found itself in this position had Burrow not been a hometown prospect.
Mike Florio Claims Joe Burrow Only Plays for Bengals for One Reason
In what has become a long-running discussion about the agency of NFL draft prospects, Mike Florio, on Pro Football Talk, revealed a strongly-worded take on why Burrow, by far the top prospect in the 2020 NFL Draft, willingly allowed the Bengals to pick him. [The relevant discussion in the embedded video begins at the 2:21 mark.]
“If Joe Burrow was from Athens, Georgia and not Athens, Ohio, he would have refused to play for the Bengals,” Florio confidently remarked.
“He gave them a chance, and it looked like they weren’t going to check the box that was going to keep him around. It looked like he was getting closer and closer to the Carson Palmer outcome where he says ‘I’m done’,” the NBC analyst continued.
“He pressured them and backed them into a corner [forcing them to re-sign Higgins and Chase]…. That never would have happened five years ago, because he would have said that he’s not playing for the Bengals. Who knows what [Bengals owner] Mike Brown would have done?”
Though Burrow’s proximity to the Bengals for much of his life (he went to high school in Athens, Ohio) surely helped ease his transition into the NFL, it’s hard to say that their marriage hasn’t been a resounding success thus far.
Burrow finished as PFSN’s fifth-ranked signal-caller in 2024 with an 88.5 QB+ grade, tossing 43 touchdowns against nine interceptions while leading the league in passing. He and the team haven’t made the playoffs since 2022, though the Bengals did appear in a Super Bowl in Burrow’s second year in the league.
The quarterback has also established brilliant chemistry with his top two receivers. Chase just won the receiving triple crown with 127 receptions for 1,708 yards and 17 TDs, while his partner in crime, Higgins, wrapped up the 2024 season with 911 yards and 10 touchdowns on 73 receptions in just 12 games.
Whether Burrow was ever seriously considering to refuse to play for Cincinnati, the quarterback has become the epicenter of the Bengals’ world over the last half-decade. It’s hard to imagine either side wanting a split right now.
Quit reading the article when I saw that his first information was completely wrong. We didn’t finish last year
Congrats on your *third-place finish. Thanks for reading!
Bengals were not last in the division last year
It’s meant to read “9-8 finish”. Not sure how that slipped through the cracks. Thanks for catching!