Stephen A. LOSES IT on Chris Canty’s take BLAMING Joe Burrow for Bengals problems 😳 | First Take

Stephen A. LOSES IT on Chris Canty’s take BLAMING Joe Burrow for Bengals problems 😳 | First Take

Back-to-back seasons without the Bengals in the playoffs. Joe Burrow looks to end that drought this season with both his top targets receiving long-term deals this off season. The team still needs to get a deal done with star pass rusher Trey Hendrickson. Though Chris Kanty had this to say if Burrow misses yet another postseason. Joe Burrow played GM this off seasonason. If it doesn’t work out for the Cincinnati Bengals, if they go a third straight year of not making the playoffs, then all of a sudden Joe Burrow is, you know, his status as a quote unquote elite quarterback in the eyes of most has to change. All of a sudden, he gets relegated to that that second tier of quarterbacks. So, since Burrow got drafted in 2020, the Bengals have struggled to begin a regular season as they posted a 380 win percentage in the first five games over that span. Burl himself also struggling with a QBR 52 in that span compared to a 67 QBR the rest of the way Kimberly it takes him a little bit to get started little bit it feels like the whole spot how much blame does Burrow deserve for the Bengals woes so here is what I’m not about to let big Chris radio cany do is put blame on Joe Burrow I’m sorry because you can’t watch the season that he had last year and say you know what that guy, he’s the reason they can’t they can’t get to the playoffs. Not when he was carrying an entire offense with Jamar Chase and T. Higgins and carrying an entire defense. The the amount of they scored almost 35 points a game in a lot of their losses. That’s on the defense. Now, one of Chris’s points was well, he played GM saying that they should sign Jamar and T. I believe a lot of us felt that they needed when you have two good receivers like that, you keep the nucleus together. Uh, I I’m not sure why Chris is so determined to drop Joe Burrow out of that elite category when the play dictates that he should be there. Stephven Night. Well, that’s Chris being Chris. I mean, I don’t know what the hell has happened to this man since he got on radio. I mean, something something’s just not right. Something’s just not right. I mean, he done lost his mind. I mean, he he’s crazy, you know, half the time, you know, but he knows his football. I love him, too. Here’s the deal, Joe Burr. I don’t want to hear about about Joe Burrow. I and RC and Kimberly, you doing the the great job covering the NFL all these years as you have. Y’all know I’m right about this. There’s I’m I people think I’m I’m exaggerating and I’m playing around when I say this. There needs to be an investigation into Zack Taylor and and and the Cincinnati Bengals coaches that I mean, what the hell are you doing over the last six years for you continuously lose the first two games of every season? It’s like there’s no trade games. It’s like they don’t do preseason. It’s like we you can pencil them in for a loss no matter what talent they have had. Do y’all know that the Cincinnati Bengals the only time they’ve won a game in the first two weeks of the season the last six years is the year they went to the Super Bowl and they finished 10 or seven that year. That’s the only time outside of that. These guys they they lose the first two weeks. What are you doing? The the lack of preparation. I cannot believe a team this talented offensively continuously you can pencil them in to be in an O2 hole. That’s them. We looked at the coaching staff when it comes to that. You fired your defensive coordinator for a reason. You couldn’t tackle. You couldn’t defend the run. You missed m messed up in coverages for crying out loud. Couldn’t get your act together. That’s why you got a new defensive coordinator. You want to talk about Joe Burrow being the GM. Well, isn’t he worthy? Led the NFL with 4918 yards passing, 43 touchdown passes. also led the NFL, only nine interceptions. QBR was third in the NFL. Passer rating was third in the NFL. Completion percentage was fourth in the NFL. This brother had eight consecutive games where he threw for over 250 yards and three touchdowns. What are we talking about here? They lost four games last year when the brother scored more than 33 points. And we going to look at him. And oh, by the way, knowing all of this, knowing all of this, RC, this brother shows up Super Bowl week in New Orleans on the set of first tape while he was right there. And what did this dude say? We got to pay Jamar Chase. We got to pay T. Higgins. We got to pay Trey Hendrickson. They took care of two of them. They took care of two of them. You damn right. Listen, if he’s a GM, guess what? At least he’s getting something done. At least he’s getting something done. I ain’t blaming Joe Burrow. That brother’s the truth. That brother’s the truth. It’s the team. It’s the organization. They need to get their act together. RC Joe’s not getting any of the blame here, guys. Listen, I was talking to somebody about Stephen A the other day and I was like, it’s amazing to watch him walk into the studio with that slow sultry saunter, right? Saunter. And then when the lights come on, he’s a different human. Like I don’t even like I don’t even know how he does it because this argument the question is so ridiculous and Stephen A gave us the passion like it was actually a relevant invalid thought about the seasons Joe Burrow has actually finished. And two of those seasons you go to the AFC Championships and one of those seasons you advance and then you look at last year and he’s the best quarterback in the world and it’s not a conversation. I was talking this off seasonason to a lot of defensive coaches and I was talking to a defensive coach and he talked to me about Josh Allen, uh Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes and he says to me, he was like, “Bro,” he’s like, “Those dudes just know how to make something out of nothing.” But the reason he thought Joe Burrow was the best was he said, “But Joe Burrow never misses the something.” There’s something to be said for a dude that knows how to put the football where it’s supposed to go. And then when you have a T. Higgins and when you have a Jamar Chase, many times those lead to explosive plays. And Joe Burrow didn’t play general manager. What Joe Burrow did is what the greatest players can always do. They can say, “Hey, I want this.” And because they want it, teams understand, we better make this dude happy. And in making him happy, he begins to pay dividends on the field for us. And the other piece of it is this. You should have wanted to keep T. Higgins and Jamar Chase. You should want to keep Trey Hendrickson. Those are the best three players on your team outside of Joe Burrow. And I don’t understand Chris’s incessant need to make us not believe in Joe Burrow. Yeah. Or for Joe Burrow to not be a part of the conversation he has earned his way into being a part of. But you just got to watch the game. There’s a drop in the corner in game one. There’s a fumble going across the line against the New England Patriots. Then there’s they now Joe Burrow did fumble against Kansas City, but on fourth down you get a pass interference that gives Kansas City the ball back to go win the game. You can see what happened in the first two games. And so, do they have to fix that? Yes. But none of these problems are Joe Burrow. You’re missing it, RC. If they got 99 problems, Joe Burrow ain’t one. You’re missing it. RC radio has done something. Wait, Chris, my boy, he’s great on the show. This is Listen, Chris Kanty Chris Kanty knows his damn football, okay? And he watches it. But the point is the critical eye the critical eye has intensified. I mean you talk about me walking into the studio and then I become a different person when the lights come on. You see this brother when radio I mean the microphone gets turned on something happens to this man and and Chris Kanty has flipped. I mean this dude I mean I’m I’m waiting for him to critique the socks that Joe Burrow wears. He might find out. I don’t know with this guy. Chris Kanty is a different breed, man. He a different breed. Hey, hey, when Chris Kanty walks into the the radio studio, he is clearly the biggest man in there, but once he sits, he must turn into a small dude because he gets a little man syndrome and he pissed off about everything. Oh my goodness. RC, I’m not going to say that. I’m not gonna say I can’t say anything about that big man. I mean, that’s a that’s a mammoth of a man right there. I’m not going to say that. here and I walking into the studio. I don’t want that breakdown. You got to keep that one to yourself. But Stephen A, he described you as sultry. So I just want you to hold on to that cuz that’s a once in a lifetime you’re going to get that. Okay. Yeah. Sultry. Actually, it’s not. Actually, it’s not. I was just told that the other day. Oh, sultry. Really? You were just told. You told it. Yeah, you told it to yourself. Cool story, brother. All right, let’s keep it rolling, guys. Obviously, Joe Burrow, such a talent. He’s always in the mix and so is this guy. When you have Patrick Mahomes and quarterback Andy Reid as head coach, you’re always in the Super Bowl conversation. Mahomes looking for his fourth ring overall and his third over the last four seasons. That is unbelievable. Since his first full season as a starting quarterback, that was 2018. The Chiefs have dominated the AFC. They made the conference title game every single season along and now attempt to go their fourth straight Super Bowl. RC, I’ll start with you on this one. What do you think’s the biggest obstacle for Kansas City to win another one? Well, I think the first thing is protecting Patrick Mahomes. That’s the biggest obstacle. That’s why you go out and you draft a lineman in the first round. You move Kingsley into the right guard position or the left guard position because he’s more comfortable there after being a second round pick last year. We watched that Super Bowl and when you saw that Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes was under siege. The only time we had ever seen that from him was his loss in the 2020 uh1 Super Bowl to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So that’s the first thing. And then I think secondly, it’s the usual suspects. It’s the Baltimore Ravens. It’s the Buffalo Bills because of Lamar Jackson. Because of Josh Allen, because of the teams you’ve built around them and not not only that, but the AFC West is much better. Kimberly knows this. Stephen A knows this. Molly, you know this. when there’s a team that’s like the Golden State Warriors, right? Everything you start to put together is to beat that football team. Well, that’s what the Denver Broncos have done. That’s what the Los Angeles Chargers are doing. They’re going to rush the passer. They’re going to be physical. They’ve got quarterbacks themselves. And so, not only do you have to start with protecting Patrick Mahomes, you also have to deal with the rest of the conference and with the rest of your division playing catchup on you. And every offseason when any AFC team starts the off season, there’s a picture of Patrick Mahomes on their mirror. The same way Rocky had a picture of Ivan Andrago on his mirror. They know what they’re aiming for. Amberly. So, this one was tough for me because like RC, I thought protecting Patrick Paramount, um, the division Bills, Ravens, but the one team that seems to match up well against the Chiefs and whose quarterback has outplayed Patrick Mahomes in two Super Bowls, I’m going to say the Philadelphia Eagles. I understand the Chiefs have to get to the Super Bowl in order to face the Eagles. I understand that. Um, but every other time that that Patrick Mahomes has been in a Super Bowl, I’m wait You’re waiting for Josh Allen and his defense to rise to the occasion. Josh always does, but there’s something that happens where the Bills always lose by three points in the playoffs to Patrick Mahomes. It’s crazy. Then you wait for Lamar, best team, best roster in the NFL. Okay, this is their year, right? Except the Ravens find different ways to make mistakes and take the game out of their own hands. So I will say the Eagles because we have actual tangible proof of Jaylen Herz going toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahome that they have available to them and how many times you going to knock on the door at some point in time you got to kick it in. You know you could say the same thing about the Bills but the reality is Kimberly is right with her answers the Philadelphia Eagles because the operative word is winning the Super Bowl as opposed to getting to it. And I was thinking about getting to the Super Bowl as opposed to actually winning it. And so when you you add the word the operative word in there winning the clear answer is the Philadelphia Eagles. But I’d like to throw this one out, too. How about the Chiefs themselves? I mean, they were humbled. Yeah, that was an ass kicking in the Super Bowl. And when you know it, it’s almost to use a to use a boxing analogy. If somebody clipped you, right, I I remember Juan Manuel Marquez uh caught Pacquiao and and and put him to sleep. You know, he caught him with a a just a legendary. You usually don’t see that happen to somebody. And he caught Pacquiao, right? But there are there are that that’s that’s a that’s a different thing uh Ryan Kimberly Molly than years ago when I saw a middleweight by the name of William JPY get absolutely destroyed by Felix Trinidad. You know that’s the kind of ass whipping where you look at a person and you say you you might need to retire. There’s no coming back from that. Uh uh you know when when when Errol Spence lost to Terrence Crawford, RC was there, I was there. We were like, “Well, damn. You need to take at least a year off before you think about it.” And if you decide to retire, ain’t nobody going to be mad at you cuz that was the kind of ass whooping. We didn’t expect to see that, right? I’m watching the Eagles in a Super Bowl against the It’s the I’m not laughing. I’m not laugh cuz I love Errol Spence, but damn. Damn. Okay, that’s all I’m saying. Now we get to the Chiefs and we look at the Super Bowl. Okay, the Eagles beating them and stuff like that. All right, I got it. Damn. I mean, you know, it’s bad when Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are sitting on the bench in the third quarter going like this. Damn. That might be the best thing that happened to them. That’s hard to get over getting hit in the hard on the Eagles and like RC that man. All right, we’ll leave it there, guys. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Stephen A. Smith, Ryan Clark and Kimberley A. Martin join Molly Qerim on First Take to discuss expectations for the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs in the 2025-26 season.

0:00 Joe Burrow’s goals
1:04 How much blame does Burrow deserve?
5:10 RC’s take
9:02 Can the Chiefs win another?
11:55 Stephen A.’s thoughts

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