Joe Burrow Believes 2026 Bengals are the Best He's Seen, Compares to 2019 LSU Team

Every NFL team will only go as far as their quarterback can take them to a greater or lesser degree, but few franchises are more dependent on their ultimate signal-caller than the Cincinnati Bengals need Joe Burrow to be... well, Joe Burrow. The first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft out of LSU has generally been a Top 5 quarterback when healthy, but he's also played through a lot of injuries, and he's missed 22 games in his NFL career.

The difference for the Bengals without Burrow has been severe. Since 2020, their winning percentage drops from .565 to .304 without him, their points per game scored went from 25.5 to 20.8, and there are no playoff wins without Burrow as opposed to the five with him - and we're not even talking about the near-win over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI at the end of the 2021 season. The Bengals were up 20-16 in that one until Matthew Stafford hit Cooper Kupp on a one-yard touchdown pass with 1:25 left in the game, and that was the 23-20 final.

Most of the issues with the Bengals with and without Burrow in recent years have had more to do with the defense than anything else. This proved especially true in the 2025 season, when Burrow missed nine games, the defense finished 30th in DVOA, and a 6-11 record was the result.

Burrow is now healthy again, but the excitement around the team is what has been done on the defensive side of the ball. The trade for New York Giants game-wrecking defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence was the marquee move, but the team also signed veterans Jonathan Allen and Boye Mafe to further energize the line, safeties Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger are now here to help in the secondary, and draft picks Cashius Howell, Landon Robinson, and Tacario Davis can also make things better with their attributes.

During mandatory minicanp this week, Burrow said about as much as he's ever said about his team in a positive sense.

"I think that's great," Burrow said Wednesday regarding higher expectations. "Puts pressure on guys. I love it. I thrive in it. We'll find out who else does. I know that we have the kind of people that want to be in that spot. I want everybody talking about the Bengals. I want everybody talking about what I'm saying in my press conferences.

"You go back and watch what I've said before. 2019 season at LSU, I feel very similarly about this team. I'm so excited to get started and get moving. I wish we would ramp this right into training camp, so we can continue to improve because I feel like there's so much greatness that we're gonna be able to achieve this year."

Well, that's a killer comparison. Burrow's 2019 LSU Tigers cut through the rest of the NCAA like the proverbial machete with a 15-0 record and a 42-25 win over Clemson in the College Football Playoff National Championship. Yes, the offense was loaded with Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire, but the defense was also a beast with Derek Stingley Jr., Patrick Queen, Grant Delpit, K'Lavon Chaisson, and Kristian Fulton.

The completion of the roster was where Burrow's comparison came from.

"We've talked a lot this year about in years past, we wondered who was going to make the team," Burrow said. "It was top-heavy. This year, it's guys that were once at the top level that were on the team for sure. Now there's a lot of competition for those spots at the end of that list. It's the first year that's really the case in my opinion. It's an exciting place to be where you have too many good players. It's our job to try to find ways to make this work, build that trust, and build those relationships."

On the offensive side of the ball, Burrow spoke about more diversity in the passing game.

"I think if you're going to be a [shot]gun team, you're going to get certain defenses, and teams inherently are going to be more worried about the pass against us and try to take that away because that's what we're great at. Teams know what we like to do, and that we're really good at it.

"Trying to find ways to be explosive in the run game and then try to find some things off of that can get us a couple of easy explosives. We're committed to that. Our coaching staff has done a great job this offseason of putting a plan together to try to execute that. So, I'm excited to see how it works out. But I'm always ready to drop back 65 times to make it work, too."

Per Next Gen Stats, last season under head coach Zac Taylor and offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher, the Bengals led the NFL in shotgun snaps - 824 total, 601 in the passing game, and 223 in the run game. Their -0.06 EPA per passing attempt spoke to how well that worked, and their +0.01 EPA per rushing attempt was about as league average as league average gets.

So yes, it's time to diversify - especially as a lot of the NFL's more dynamic offenses are returning to more under-center looks.

More than anything, Burrow seems to be taking more of a leadership role than ever before, and everybody knows that his voice is right up there in terms of importance.

"We had a really young team," Burrow said of last year's squad. "A lot of us had come in together and been through it together. Now we have so many varying ages on the team from guys that we're counting on, and we've brought in some veterans too. That certainly has made it easier.

"But building trust between a 21-year-old first-year player and a 31-, 32-year-old, nine, 10-year vet, that's a difficult task. [It's my] job as a quarterback to try to bridge those gaps where you can. That's something I've focused on. I think if you want to be a championship-caliber team, then you have to build those relationships and build that trust, so you know you can have hard conversations about things that are going on the field, as well as off."

The Bengals haven't made the playoffs since the end of the 2022 season, the year after that Super Bowl berth, when they lost yet another 23-20 game to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game, missing another Super Bowl trip by the 45 yards it took Harrison Butker's game-winning kick to go through the uprights at the end of that contest.

Now, it appears that Burrow and the Bengals believe that they have enough on the ball to not only return to potential domination, but also to erase those painful three-point deficits and bring the franchise its first Lombardi Trophy.

Even if that's not the case, believing it to be so is the only way to get even halfway there.

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This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 6:01 PM.