{"id":755049,"date":"2026-02-16T01:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755049\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T01:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:36:22","slug":"emmitt-smith-throws-out-a-wild-take-about-bengals-qb-joe-burrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755049\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmitt Smith throws out a wild take about Bengals QB Joe Burrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most would agree <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/test-post-221407100.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cincinnati Bengals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> quarterback Joe Burrow is an elite player at his position.<\/p>\n<p>That most just doesn&#8217;t include Emmitt Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl champion, recently said that only Patrick Mahomes is \u201celite.\u201d Names like Burrow, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen\u2026not so much.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Appearing on the \u2018This is Football\u2019 podcast with Kevin Clark, Smith listed Mahomes as elite and said this about Burrow and the rest: \u201cHell no, they are not elite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/6-bengals-veterans-won-t-173026092.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:6 Bengals veterans who won\u2019t be on Zac Taylor\u2019s roster next year;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">6 Bengals veterans who won\u2019t be on Zac Taylor\u2019s roster next year<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t consider them to be in that bracket just yet.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/cincinnati-bengals\/327\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bengals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Bengals<\/a>\u2019 Super Bowl appearance, right?<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Another way to look at it? More than 20 NFL franchises would stop what they\u2019re doing right now to get a quarterback like Burrow. That would certainly seem to classify as elite at one\u2019s position.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/bengals-key-offseason-dates-nfl-143424116.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bengals&#039; key offseason dates for NFL free agency, draft and more;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bengals&#8217; key offseason dates for NFL free agency, draft and more<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/bengalswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/bengals\/2026\/02\/15\/bengals-joe-burrow-emmitt-smith-throws-out-wild-take\/88694392007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Emmitt Smith throws out a wild take about Bengals QB Joe Burrow;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Emmitt Smith throws out a wild take about Bengals QB Joe Burrow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most would agree Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is an elite player at his position. That most just&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[4094,228,227,256,2296,27653,21119,7,1577,872,15710,895,6,499,26420,8551],"class_list":["post-755049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-aaron-donald","tag-bengals","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-elite-player","tag-emmitt-smith","tag-football","tag-joe-burrow","tag-josh-allen","tag-kevin-clark","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-pro-football-hall-of-famer","tag-super-bowl-champion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116077748940154089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}