Most would agree Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is an elite player at his position.
That most just doesn’t include Emmitt Smith.
Smith, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl champion, recently said that only Patrick Mahomes is “elite.” Names like Burrow, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen…not so much.
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Appearing on the ‘This is Football’ podcast with Kevin Clark, Smith listed Mahomes as elite and said this about Burrow and the rest: “Hell no, they are not elite.”
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Smith went on to explain that elite players rise above their circumstances. He admitted that the other non-Mahomes players listed are still learning how to be elite, but that he doesn’t consider them to be in that bracket just yet.
It’s an eye-of-the-beholder thing, of course. Smith heavily weighs championships in his talk with Clark. As Clark goes on to point out, the conversation might be different if Aaron Donald had been a little slower at the end of the Bengals’ Super Bowl appearance, right?
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Another way to look at it? More than 20 NFL franchises would stop what they’re doing right now to get a quarterback like Burrow. That would certainly seem to classify as elite at one’s position.
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This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Emmitt Smith throws out a wild take about Bengals QB Joe Burrow