Do you believe this will be Burrow's last year with Bengals if they don't win Super Bowl LXI? 'GMFB'
"GMFB" debates do you believe this will be quarterback Joe Burrow's last year with the Cincinnati Bengals if they don't win Super Bowl LXI.
Video Transcript
Quarterback there.
They lose in the Super Bowl 2021, bam, right out the gates.
They get all the way back to the AFC title game.
Can't make it past that benchmark.
23, 24, 25, miss, miss, miss, playoff, playoff, playoff.
Manti- believe it or not, you go first.
This will be Joe Burrow's final season with the Bengals if they don't win Super Bowl LXI, considering what he just said at the podium, he's treating it now or never.
Not.
If you believe that is gonna happen, you're crazy because if this is If no matter how this season pans out for the Bengals, Joe Burrow is your franchise quarterback.
The only way that you get rid of your franchise quarterback is if you need multiple pieces, and what they did this off-season kinda answered that for me.
If they have a subpar or a season that doesn't meet their expectations, the first person gone is Zac Taylor.
He's gonna be gone.
It's a lot harder to find a franchise quarterback than it is to find a good head coach.
Let's look around the league, guys.
There's a lot of teams that are still trying to find a franchise quarterback.
The Browns.
I mean, the Falcons are in one.
They just drafted one in the first round a few years ago.
The Jets, the Cardinals.
Vikings drafted one la- two years ago as well.
Texans are hoping that C.J.
Stroud gets back to franchise quarterback territory.
So it's a lot easier to replace a head coach, and this is no disrespect to coaches.
It's just when you find a franchise quarterback, you hold on to that baby as ha- as, as, as much as you can, and you don't let that one go for- on, so I say no.
Oos, uh- Ooh.
Led with a oos.
It's early.
It's early.
So I had the great and longtime Cincinnati Bengal, Andrew Whitworth, on my show yesterday.
The Set with Terron Armstrong.
The Set with Terron.
Yes.
Shout out.
Shout out.
My girl.
My girl.
And, and Whi- he told a, he told a, talked about Carson Palmer and his time with Cincinnati as they were going in the playoffs back to back.
And Carson Palmer left the Cincinnati Bengals because of the work environment.
Lack of resources, lack of really investing and putting a complete team together to go compete for a Super Bowl, so he left the team.
That's not happening with Joe Burrow.
So I'm, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
You scared me.
He's not, Joe's not going anywhere.
This is He, he's there.
He's locked in.
He, he'll be a Cincinnati Bengal for the foreseeable future.
They got Ja'Marr Chase locked into a long-term deal.
They got Tee Higgins locked into a long-term deal.
They really do need to invest and get that defense corrected and figured out, but Joe Burrow is a Cincinnati Bengal for now until- Until whenever.
Whenever.
KB.
Yeah, I mean, it, it feels really dramatic, and the, the dark side of us seems fun to indulge something like this.
Listen, he, he has a $275 million extension.
It runs through 2029.
I think he's a free agent in 2030.
That's, like, all the contractual stuff, but the conceptual stuff is the only way that Joe Burrow would not be a Bengal next year is if he made some incredibly hostile line in the sand in which he says after this year, "I'm not playing for this team again.
I demand to be traded.
I would rather retire than play for the..." I mean, that's, that's scorched earth type stuff.
I don't, I don't know if it's coming to that.
Here's the thing, though, like, massive, massive changes, yes.
I think the elephant in the room is Zac Taylor.
I think we all know that, and we all know that Zac Taylor, if this, this season doesn't go well this year, may not be here next year, especially in this new world in which the Ravens just got rid of John Harbaugh, the Steelers just got a Mike Tomlin.
I mean, every- the Bills, everybody's doing it.
Everybody's saying, "We have a star quarterback," ex- exception of the Steelers, and saying, "We gotta get a new guy."
So if the Ravens work out this year, if the Bills work out this year, there's a sum of a copycat league thing where the Bengals are like, "I think Joe might need a fresh voice in his ear."
And I don't relish that, 'cause I like Zac Taylor, but what are we doing here?
Mm-hmm.
Joe Burrow being a, not being a Bengal next year would be astronomical.
It'd be historical.
I mean, the Carson Palmer thing is apt.
Carson Palmer at the end of his career was really strange, and he was doing things like saying, "I'd rather retire than play for this team," with the Raiders, with the Bengals, and then he found, like, a, kind of a Disney ending with the Cardinals.
But, I mean, the chance of Joe Burrow They're not gonna trade him unless he says, "I won't report to camp, and I will never play for you again."
I hope it doesn't come to that, and it would have to be really nasty this year for it to come to that.
You know what's a better scenario?
Just everybody stays healthy, and they go out and win games and maybe a couple playoff games, and this is a mute conversation.
But, a highly, highly unlikely, although really darkly, kind of fun hypothetical to think about.
See, I push back on the why wouldn't they trade them.
I understand why we're all addressing this from the Bengals' perspective, Joe Burrow and the Bengals, blah, blah.
What if, and believe it or not, there's another team out there that so desperately needs somebody like Burrow in the absolute immediacy?
Because the Bengals have a building their defense problem right now- Yeah which takes time.
It takes seasons.
So I say there could be another team, one of, a- any of the other 31 that so badly need a franchise quarterback that they will put his money on the payroll, that they will go out, and they will give up guys and picks- Yeah and they will leverage their future to have somebody like that.
We've seen crazier things done, a la Jared Goff-Stafford trade between the Rams and the Lions a couple years ago.
So is it so crazy to think that there's one of any other 31 teams that would give up the house in order to have Burrow in the building?
I, I, I There's always a possibility, Jayme, that somebody could do that.
It's gonna cost a lot, and it's, to your point, it's not only gonna cost probably your two best players on your team, it's gonna probably cost two first-round picks.
Yeah, I'll take it.
And so if you're, if you're willing to do that, then go right ahead.
I don't think that the Cincinnati Bengals are gonna sit there and be like, "Well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you know- Right give that up."
Uh-huh.
However, knowing who Joe Burrow is, and to Terron's point of knowing what they have around him, a lot of their f- their roster was built around Joe, right?
So you can't just say like, "Yeah, I'm gonna draft a quarterback in the first round of next year and everything's gonna go..." No, like, you had Ja'Marr.
You drafted Ja'Marr a lot because you had Joe.
So there's just so much history there for me, with Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals that I just don't think it's that easy to be like, "Hey, I can just plug and play guys at quarterback, because, you know, this guy's offered me two first rounds and two, elite players."
It just doesn't work that way in my opinion, Terron.
25, 20 to 27 teams that would trade the house for Joe Burrow.
Mm-hmm.
No question about it.
It's the hardest position in sports to play.
It's the hardest to find, and if Think about the Cleveland Browns.
Mm-hmm.
They have been searching for a Joe Burrow before I was alive- Mm-hmm and, and on.
It's been, it's been a while.
They would trade everything for Joe Burrow.
So for the Cincinnati Bengals, i- in the, in the same vein, like, it's really, really difficult to find these people.
He's not going anywhere.
Mm-hmm.
I, I was just Jamie, let's go to the, let's go to the lunch room, okay?
Okay.
You're doing At the Table, and your friend is saying, "I'll trade you my pretzels, and my carrots, and my milk.
I- I Everything I got for your fruit snacks."
And you'd be like, "Wow, that's a very generous offer, but, like, it's the fruit snacks.
I'm not giving you- the Shark Bites.
N- get out of here.
This is the fruit snacks."
they, they could get a million different offers for a half a billion dollars, but the Bengals, I still don't think are ever giving up Burrow, unless Burrow is like, "Again, I'm not playing for you."
The Goff-Stafford swap was an interesting thing.
That was the case where the Rams traded their quarterback 'cause they picked the head coach.
They're like, "Sean McVay is the face of our organization.
Sean's relationship with Jared has deteriorated.
Let's make this move and get Sean someone new."
That's the reason they did that.
I don't think the Bengals have that dynamic.
It would just Again, the, the only way it happens is if Burrow puts on the black hat, and goes full villain, and says, like, "I disavow this.
I'm gone.
I will never play here again."
And I just Everything's possible, and he's a unique thinker.
And c- imagine how badly this season would have to go for that to happen.
This is an incredibly pessimistic segment.
I think- No, it's fun I think we should get to the next question- I wanna go back to the lunch table because I think the Bengals are gonna be good this year.
No.
Kyle, I wanna go back to the lunch table- Yeah 'cause it's a valid point.
All right, yeah.
There's someone who is keenly aware- Okay who has the fruit snacks.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe that person knows that they have basketball practice after school, so they need the carrots, and the pretzels, and the chicken nuggets 'cause they need that energy to sustain them.
Yeah.
The person that wants the fruit snacks, they have, to run the mile after lunch.
Like, they need that i- immediate blood sugar spike.
They need the energy.
You Sometimes the trade just works- Yeah because people have, like, the long-term goal, but man, do I love a fruit snack.
Yeah, James- You know what I mean?
See, see, see, we're, we're talking about the sides.
This- Man, come on.
Don't give up the fruit snacks so when you're talking about Joe Burrow- you're talking about that square pizza that they used to serve at the cafeteria.
Like, you, you could trade me the fruit cocktail, the little bun that you had on the side, whether you got chocolate or white milk, whatever it was, I'm still not gonna give you my square pizza for the sides that I got on that thing.
That's, that's the difference between when you talk about Joe Burrow and the rest of the guys that you're trying to trade him for
