NFL Insider Tom Pelissero on Joe Burrow’s Future with the Cincinnati Bengals | The Rich Eisen Show

Let’s talk about Joe Burrow’s last a few months that has now led to my question that I’m about to ask about the toe injury. He comes back and he’s sat out so he could play two games in five days. Um or one of the games in five days. He doesn’t play the Sunday so he could play on the Thursday. He beats the uh Baltimore Ravens. Then he goes to the Western New York snow and he’s up by 10 before the roof caves in with a couple of interceptions. And then he gets to the podium and starts saying things like, “If I want to have if I want to keep doing this, I need to have fun.” Then he gets shut out, but he says, “This has nothing to do with the Bengals.” Then he comes back this past Wednesday and he says he definitely sees himself being the Bengals quarterback next year, but when asked about what about other places, he goes, “You think about a lot of things. What in the world is going on with Joe Burrow? Tom, >> I I would start with this, Rich. Rehab is not fun, right? >> And Joe Burrow has spent an inordinate of amount of time over the last six years since he got into the NFL rehabbing. He had the ACL reconstruction, which is like an eight or nine month process. Um, that started in the tail end of his rookie season. He’s had a calf injury. He has had a really significant uh type of a wrist injury. He had an appendecttomy. He played every game last season and really he hadn’t missed a ton of game action. A lot of these things happen at the tail end uh of seasons where he was rehabbing in the offseason, but that also cuts into the normal break that you’re going to have. This year when I sat down with Joe like the second week of training camp and he was talking about this is the best he’s felt and how great it was to have a healthy training camp. Week two he suffers a really significant turf toe injury which is it’s a 12 to 14 week injury. Rich, it it’s a long-term injury. When it first happened, um the sense I got was he probably wasn’t coming back until the very end at best of the regular season. He beats the timeline. He misses nine games. He’s back in like 10 weeks. And then he has a grand total of what about, you know, 10 days from the moment he steps on the field to the Bengals being eliminated in part because, you know, he played great in that Buffalo game, but for two interceptions on consecutive snaps. One where the ball kind of slips out of his hand, another one where it gets picked off right at the line of scrimmage. That was the swing in the game. And for a guy who prides himself so much on being one of the absolute best in the world at what he does, >> there hasn’t been a lot of time to enjoy, you know, much less success, but even uh playing the game. >> Yeah. No, I that I get that. I I understand that. But, you know, Bengals fans who are still going through PTSD from another guy who was drafted first overall wearing number nine, they just want to hear from him. I’m your guy. I’m not going anywhere. Not like you think about a lot of things. um >> he already said it 2026 doesn’t envision any scenario where he’s not the Bengals quarterback which makes sense he’s due um about 161 million over the next four years which in quarterback terms 40 million per for Joe Burrow assuming which is a big assumption at this point that he’s healthy that’s one of the best bargains uh in the NFL Mike Brown the Bengals owner has never been somebody who wants to trade players he doesn’t want anyone else playing with his toys Joe Burrow’s under contract for the next four years. Every expectation that even if they got calls, which they certainly might, even if Gerald Burrow were to say, “I want to be traded,” which it doesn’t sound like he’s going to, but even if that happened, I wouldn’t anticipate that anything changes um on that front from ownership. In terms of people who are saying, “Well, then change out the head coach.” Again, that’s not how the Bengals historically have operated. It would be a surprise if they were to move on from Zack Taylor, a guy who took him to a Super Bowl and took him to another AFC Championship game. The past three years have been rough. Three straight nonplayoff seasons. Burrow has dealt with injuries, even though again he didn’t miss time in terms of game action last year, but he’s he’s dealt with a lot this season. He was basically not out there. That’s a driving force. Not to mention defensively, you go through the entire off season where you’re at war contractually with uh your top pass rusher Trey Hendrickson and your first round pick Shamar Stewart. Neither guy has played very much through the course of the season. You saw flashes those first couple weeks from Stewart. Then he suffers Shamar Stewart, then he suffers an injury, misses a large chunk of time. Trey Hendrickson gets banged up, misses basically the entire second half of the season. They’ve had um a lot of, you know, complications here. You go back to the start of the offseason. What did Joe Burrow want him to do? Resign Jamar Chase, resign Higgins, resign Trey Hendrickson. They did all of it. The Bengals have have basically given Burrow what he wanted. They changed their contract structure for him. And that’s not to say that there’s not reasons for Joe Burrow to be frustrated. My sense is the frustration as much as anything is at his situation. The fact he hasn’t got an opportunity to enjoy playing football. Let’s see where it goes in 2026. Maybe we’re in a different place at the end of this season. There could well be rumors in the offseason. Again, I would not be surprised. Why wouldn’t people call the Bengals about him? It is really, really hard, as Joe Burrow said, to envision a scenario where he’s not the Bengals quarterback in 2026. >> Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

NFL Insider Tom Pelissero and Rich Eisen discuss if Joe Burrow can regain his love of football playing for the woebegone Cincinnati Bengals or if an offseason trade could be in the QB’s future.

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21 comments

  4. My heart refuses to believe this will transpire, but my brain has always said this would probably happen. I don’t think I’ll ever see my Bengals win a Super Bowl…😩

  5. We are talking about a man who had what many times is a career ending injury, he had surgery and recovered amazingly and 5-6wks early. Plays on Thanksgiving night on the road team rolls, next game in Buffalo very cold and snow has a tipped ball interception, and then coughs one up then still comes back for a td! Next game -20 brutal game. Tomorrow playing in Miami 81 degree's he will be feeling better. Give the guy a break he will continue to heal in many ways at seasons end. This guy is a true class act an a Gamer!! He Will prevail and will hold his head up.

  6. Glad we won playoff games with Burrow. Thats all we wanted for 30 yrs before Burrow. We won 0 playoff games before him for 30 yrs. Burrow will be gone soon. Let’s enjoy his last season in 2026 be happy with this outcome

  11. Brees didn't pout when they had probably the worst defense of all time during the mid 2010s for multiple seasons. Tired of this narrative, he's not gonna have Chase and Higgins either.

  12. I do think that the national media is making a lot of nothing here. He’s pissed. We’re losing. He’s missed 2 seasons to freak injuries. Move on.

  13. I think Burrow will finish his contract with the Bengals but if he hasn’t or doesn’t feel he can win a Superbowl with the Bengals he will go somewhere else. The Bengals simply need some more defensive studs. I heard an ex player say you need at least 3 defensive studs to have a good defense. When the Bengals went to the Superbowl you had Hendrickson DJ Reeder Jesse Bates and I’d include Sam Hubbard too. You lost Reeder and Bates and Hubbard retired. Too many great players too quickly. At a minimum they should have kept Bates. They need to go get a few great defensive players and I think they’d be in the hunt for another Superbowl.

  18. I like Burrow just fine, but it's so ridiculous to me that one successful QB can throw a couple interceptions and the NFL media dogs him out, but Burrow can throw 4 INTs in two games, including two pick 6es, and NFL media is like "he's so great for coming back ahead of schedule"

    There also comes a point when "the greatest ability is availability" kicks in.

  19. You think Rehab is the reason! Really? how about working 50 hours a week in a factory making little bit more than minimum wage only to have to drop half your pay to take the family to watch a game. Wow. Life is rough Being a NFL player these days ✌ Hope he gets some much needed therapy .. Good luck Joe.

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