The Cincinnati Bengals were one of the more disappointing teams in the NFL during the 2024 season. Cincinnati missed the playoffs after finishing 9-8 thanks to a pitiful start to the season. That is not enough for Bengals QB Joe Burrow.
Burrow appeared on Up & Adams with Kay Adams on Thursday ahead of Super Bowl 59. Adams asked Burrow about the last time he was incredibly proud of an accomplishment. His answer had nothing to do with the Bengals.
“Probably the National Championship in 2020,” Burrow said. “That felt like a culmination of a lot of different things that came together and worked out well for me. That was an exciting moment.”
Adams joked that the next time she sees Burrow smoking a cigar that he will probably feel accomplished then. Burrow was not willing to commit to that.
“Well, if we win the division I’ll smoke one,” Burrow replied. “So I wouldn’t say I’ll be satisfied after that. But a Super Bowl will definitely satisfy me.”
Burrow clearly has an unwavering championship mentality. In his mind, every season that does not end appearing in the Super Bowl is a failure.
Joe Burrow gets 100% real on Bengals missing the playoffs in 2024
Understandably, Burrow was certainly not satisfied with how Cincinnati’s 2024 season concluded.
He spoke about what went wrong during a recent episode of The Dan Patrick Show.
“We just didn’t make plays down the stretch in some of these games,” Burrow said on Thursday. “We had a lot of these games, one or they were tight and we had to lead in the fourth quarter, and we just weren’t able to close it out for a multitude of reasons. And you know, we had some bad luck too, that’s part of life in the NFL. Some years you have good luck, some years you have bad and we had pretty bad luck. But we had, we had the opportunity to close out some games that we didn’t.”
But that doesn’t mean Burrow is backing down from the challenge. In fact, Burrow is willing to take a pay cut to keep Cincinnati’s core of talented player together.
“Yeah I do,” Burrow said. “We have the cap space to get it done. I want to make it happen, everybody involved [including] Trey [Hendrickson], Tee [Higgins], Ja’Marr [Chase], [Mike Gesicki], we all want to stay together. So when you have guys that are motivated like that I think you can get those things done.”
It will be fascinating to see how the Bengals approach the upcoming offseason. Hopefully, they can keep the band together and add new talent for Burrow.
