Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Joe Burrow Receives MAJOR Praise, Will Team Protect Him This Season?

Starting point is 00:00:01 Joe Burrow clearly has a respect of evaluators around the NFL, but vocal internet haters remain. Let's break it down. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What up Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Jake Liskill. He's James Rapids.

Starting point is 00:00:35 and we are your host of the Lockdown Bengals podcast covering your Bengals here since 2016. We're on YouTube. We're everywhere you get your podcast. So if you're looking for a daily source of all things, Bengals, as we've worked through the preseason and the Bengals playing Monday nights, we'll have your game preview on Sunday. You are in the right place. Just hit that subscribe button and make sure you don't miss an episode to become one of the many Bengals fans

Starting point is 00:00:58 who makes Lockdown Bengals part of their everyday routine. We appreciate all of you out there that make us your first. listen. Today's episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. You can take control of your finances with Monarch Money using code locked on NFL at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. And today, James, we're going to dive into a topic that was hotter earlier in the week as Mike Sando

Starting point is 00:01:23 over theathletic.com did his survey of 50 voters, including six GMs, six assistant GMs, six former GMs, five other executives, eight head coaches, 19 other coaches, including 15 coordinators, as he gathered tiering data on NFL quarterbacks. On the same day, Dan Rolovsky ranked a bunch of quarterbacks across several categories of quarterback play. And the conclusion there is that Joe Burrow still has the league's respect, but then I see

Starting point is 00:01:54 some of the reaction, and that's why I included a bit about vocal internet haters that are still out there. The discourse around QB rankings remains weird and hyperbolic. But Joe Burrow in the eyes of NFL executives, James, a unanimous tier one quarterback, the only one in the league outside of Patrick Mahomes. And so when Locked-on Bengals, and shout out to the everydayers, when the Locked-on Bengals podcast says, well, he very well could be the best quarterback in the league. Or he's right there.

Starting point is 00:02:24 Or Zach Taylor says what he said about Joe. Or locally, you feel how you feel about Joe because he is unique. and you might have watched Bengals football your entire life. We have listeners and viewers that have watched Bengals football since they were founded in 1968. Guess what? Joe's different. He's unique. And NFL coordinators, head coaches, executives, they all feel the same way.

Starting point is 00:02:48 And yeah, you mentioned the internet haters. When you're at the top or you're near the top or you're neck and neck with the guy who's got three rings. And I thought Joe was better than Patrick Mahomes last year, for example. And so when you're that guy, there's going to be people, especially when he doesn't have the physical attributes that some of these guys have. He's not big and strong like a Josh Allen is. He's not the athlete that a Lamar Jackson is, but he still wins and does it in a way that I'm not sure there's another quarterback on the planet that can do it the way Joe does right now. It's hard to quantify at times, but yeah, he's not just elite.

Starting point is 00:03:30 he's not just a top five quarterback. He's arguably the best quarterback in the league. And that's what the Mike Sando specifically, the Mike Sando survey tells me. When you have a guy like Dan Rolowski, we can dive into each of these doing it. Well, that's great. That's what Dan thinks. But league-wide, how is it?

Starting point is 00:03:51 Well, 50 well-respected people inside the league, all were surveyed and end up with some really, really lofty praise for Joe Burrow. He's right there with Patrick Mahomes in Tier 1. He is a unanimous top tier selection for the first time. The only other guys to be unanimous tier one quarterbacks in the history of doing this exercise, according to Mike Sandor, Aaron Rogers, who did it six times, Patrick Mahomes, who's done it five times,

Starting point is 00:04:18 Tom Brady, who's done it four times. And incidentally, Russell Wilson has done it once, which I find to be a little bit funny. This goes back to 2019. So easy to forget that there was a time. Russ Wilson was very well respected and seen as one of the top quarterbacks in the league. It's been a little bit of time now. But Joe in 2021 was a mixed bag of votes.

Starting point is 00:04:44 The highest tier he received going into their Super Bowl year was Tier 2. He had 27 Tier 2 votes. He had 17 Tier 3 votes and six Tier 4 votes going into 2021. Then they went to the Super Bowl and things shot up in 2020. he had 33 tier one votes and 17 tier two votes. He ran it back, had another good year. They went to the AFC championship game, and then in 2023, 49 tier one vote to one tier two vote, one voter preventing him from being a unanimous

Starting point is 00:05:17 tier one quarterback back in 2023. He had the wrist injury and then going into last year, people forgot about him, but that much, just a little bit. 43 tier one votes to seven tier two votes. then obviously last year had the MVP caliber year up to 50 tier one vote. So you can see the trend there for the last really since the Super Bowl run. He's had respect league wide and that has been inching up and up and up. And if you hadn't had that injury with the wrist, I think we could be talking about multiple

Starting point is 00:05:47 consecutive years of unanimous number ones, but there's that one voter and then the wrist injury that means we're talking about this for the first time now. And when you look at the company in this list, Aaron Rogers, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, that's about as good as it gets since Mike Sandoz has been doing this project. He's on that level. There's no doubt. And that's what's maddening about what we're going to talk about later in the show. That's a tease, Jake.

Starting point is 00:06:16 But that's it. Like, the Bengals very well could have the best quarterback in the league this year in a league that has Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes. Like that's wild to say. And that gives them a chance any week, every week, no matter who's on the other side. And so this is well-deserved and well-earned praise. A year ago, we still weren't sure how Joe is going to perform coming off of that wrist. Super serious wrist injury.

Starting point is 00:06:45 And he obviously threw for career high at Bengals record on NFL leading 4,918 yards, then the NFL in completions, led the NFL touchdown passes with 43, completed over 70% of his passes, is asked to do more than any of these other guys for sure, just the load, the workload, the responsibilities that are on his shoulders day in and day out. And yet I do think, and this is the exciting part, there is another gear. We're starting to see that I think he's had a great training camp, Wednesday aside, where that defense was really dominating in the trenches, and we hit on that on our past show.

Starting point is 00:07:25 But he's had a great training camp. And so what's that next gear? What's that next level with a bunch of weapons that he's familiar with? I think that's intriguing. But this is well-deserved praise. And for me, personally, it's nice to see it because that's how I feel. And for all these league executives and league coaches and all these people to say the same thing,

Starting point is 00:07:48 it's like, okay, well, you're not too close. to it because you don't that's the danger when you do what we do is you're watching every snap you're around it you don't want to miss or mis-evaluate because you're so close to it and obviously i don't think we have in the n-fell doesn't feel that way either yeah the danger of doing what we do is that we watch the bengal so closely and it's it's so hard i've said this in several places at this point but it's so hard to cover every nfl team and these guys are in the league this is our job these are coaches that are preparing for these guys and everything. So different from the media perspective, but from a media perspective to cover

Starting point is 00:08:24 every team well is incredibly hard. And so when you get this bit of wide survey across the league kind of data that says, yeah, no, we know Joe's in that top tier. And everyone agrees. Where it gets spicy, though, is nice. But where it gets spicy and validating is when you have the comparison to Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, who both in tier one, but still have a few voters, despite everything they've done that are like, ah, they're, they're one point one. They're not solid ones. There's a couple of tier two votes to bring them down. And then when that happens, you get people arguing on the internet. Whenever Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow get compared, or even Pat Mahomes in that mix, get people arguing on the internet. And it's the most

Starting point is 00:09:16 predictable and honestly quite venomous thing that that's out there and it's pretty annoying. But we've got to get to Dan Orlovsky's rankings as well, as well as the haters. I don't know how much attention I want to give it, but it happens every time these lists come out. I haven't seen it. So I'm curious to see what you said because I haven't seen about it. Yeah. We'll get to those topics here coming up next.

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Starting point is 00:10:56 Is, oh, man, Joe led in more categories than this guy or that guy or that guy. And Dan Arlofsky obviously is a big fan of Joe Burroughs game. I think that a lot of these made a lot of sense. Like decision-making ball placement mechanics, these are things that these are the ways Joe Burrow wins. Like those make a ton of sense to me to put him number one. Pocket presence, I think Joe's got great pocket presence. I think that there are people out there and there are fair arguments to make where you could say Pat Mahomes or Lamar Jackson or even Josh Allen could be argued to be better in terms of pocket presence. Now, whether you're differentiating like pocket presence versus pocket evasiveness.

Starting point is 00:11:43 or sack avoidance and you're calling those different things, then maybe it gets a little bit different. And again, I think Joe does have top-to-your pocket presence, pocket management, pocket awareness, all these things. I also could understand if someone wanted to say that one of these other guys, because they're all great at it, one of these other guys was in that ballpark too. But the categories that Orlovsky is ranking, which outside of those, those four where Joe Burroughs first are arm strength,

Starting point is 00:12:17 rushing ability, and second reaction, like when a play breaks down when you can't get through your progressions and get a throw off, you have to improvise. Those are the other ones. Out of those, those are the four categories that I would expect Joe to rank the highest in. And I think second reaction will be the next highest. So none of those are terribly surprising to me

Starting point is 00:12:40 just because those are the categories that Orlovsky's talking about. and I could see an argument specifically for pocket presence. Maybe there are people out there. I'm not saying I necessarily see this argument, but there are people out there that would argue that Justin Herbert is a better decision maker than Joe Burrow because people cite how he's so robotic and makes the right decision all the time

Starting point is 00:13:02 and doesn't put the pole in danger. I don't agree with that, obviously, but that is some of the feedback I saw too, or Lovski's rankings. Enough with the Herber, enough. Enough. Anyways, yeah, I, that's one of those, though, again, it goes, it's going to be something that, even if Joe wins the Super Bowl this year, wins MVP, wins Super Bowl MVP, you're not going to be able to always quantify everything he does, how he does it. And so there's going to be haters. So like, that's just going to come with the territory with Joe Burroughs game to a degree. To me, the, the pocket presence, like, we already know, Joe. doesn't care, doesn't mind taking sacks at times and in his fine holding on the ball and trying to, uh, in the right situation, make the play. And that's what makes him special. I, I, I think it's

Starting point is 00:13:56 most of the time he's making the, the right decision in the pocket and the way he moves and slides and all those things. Like for example, I'll just go back to Super Bowl 50. What was it? 59. Right. So the, the Eagles just get after Patrick Mahomes and he's lost in the sauce in February. I don't think Burrow would have been lost in the sauce. It doesn't mean that they would have won. I'm not saying that he would have led the chiefs to victory over that Eagles roster. That Eagles team was awesome. But I don't think he would have looked like he did, just like a few years ago.

Starting point is 00:14:29 Because he's used to it. He's used to being under pressure. He's used to all of that. And so I do think, like, and I remember thinking that during the game and then after the game, this is not hindsight. But it's like, man, when you're not used to it, you almost get like, it's a lug. and it's hard to adjust on the fly, Joe is used to his guards sucking for lack of a better term. Used to that quick pressure right up the middle, immediate losses at the snap.

Starting point is 00:14:55 I mean, that is a good point. I think like the two notable national zeitgeist games that Patrick Mahomes has lost or the two Super Bowls he's lost, right? People, they've lost other games obviously, but the ones that people think about are those two Super Bowls when they say, I didn't have a chance. There's no chance with that offensive line. He can't operate like that. But we've seen Joe do it. And so that is a really good argument that maybe there shouldn't be so much debate over

Starting point is 00:15:26 pocket presence. I think Lamar Jackson is also really good in the pocket. I do also think Josh Allen is really good in the pocket. I think Jaden Daniels could climb this list this year. Jaden Daniels ranking 10th in Orlovsky's list this year. I think Jordan Love could climb in this list over the. course of his career. But the consistent production that Joe gets, despite the protection issues they've had, and that was one of the interesting quotes in the athletic pieces.

Starting point is 00:15:56 Like, he's doing great. They don't protect him. And this, again, feeds into a conversation we're going to have in a few minutes. But Burroughs, you know, the small movements in the pocket like you're talking about, the ability to find a throwing platform, especially last year, when Joe just at some point was like, the defense ain't going to do it. I think back to that Denver game again. Yeah. The amount of kicker that he's taking or like he's getting the ball out like right before he's about to get clobbered.

Starting point is 00:16:32 That's the stuff that I think fits into pocket presence, pocket field timing. I think that goes into this conversation. So for that category, no surprises. I also think it makes sense that he's at the top of those other ones like we talked about. But when you say that the things go unnoticed with Joe, I think it really is largely because he plays with that feel and timing and ball placement. And people like, oh, that's not a hard throw. Any NFL QB should be able to make that throw.

Starting point is 00:16:59 But to do it with the timing and ball placement and accuracy that Burrow does consistently, while often under duress, is really what separates him. and he makes it look easy, which I think is part of, part of the whole thing as well. But what gets me is the film grinders that take issue with it and get really worked up

Starting point is 00:17:20 when somebody thinks Joe Burroughs better than Lamar Jackson. Yeah. By the way, I think the majority of NFL executives would take Joe Burrow over Lamar. I'm not saying it's 3200, but it's more than 16.

Starting point is 00:17:36 And not just based on the tiers. felt that way before that. Like, it's, it's, uh, it is funny how that's viewed.

Starting point is 00:17:47 And, and there are, there are corners of, not even the internet, corners of like analysis where it's like, oh, you feel that way. Huh.

Starting point is 00:17:55 And you're right. Herbert's in that mix too. And it's really weird. Like, that's weird because there's a clear gap. No matter what you want to say. There are quote unquote film grindy analysis that see this and get really indignant about it. And I understand disagreeing.

Starting point is 00:18:09 Like you want to disagree, fine. Sure. But like acting like it's obvious, acting like there's no debate. Like if somebody were to tell me that they think Lamar is better than Joe, be like, I understand your perspective. Sure. Two-time MVP. They've won the election back to back years.

Starting point is 00:18:23 Yeah. Like you want to make that argument fine. But like when you get indignant about it, that's what gets me. And I'm not trying to be indignant about this. I'm indignant about the indignancy from other analysts. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, there's four.

Starting point is 00:18:36 To me, there's a big four. And they're going to be ranked a bunch of different ways. And then after that, I will be like, are you serious? You're going to say Herbert or Stafford who hasn't thrown a pass-all camp and is older than Jake Liscoe. Like guys like that, like put them farther down the level. I don't know. I hope. I was trying to make you feel young.

Starting point is 00:18:55 He's only a couple months older than me. Yeah. He's young, yeah, baby. Yeah. But you get like, that's what's silly to me. But yeah, Lamar is awesome. Josh Allen's awesome, but if Burroughs ahead of those guys, and Burrow may be ahead of Mahomes in this ranking next year.

Starting point is 00:19:13 Like, if the year goes the way he wants it to go, it certainly will be that way. And that's okay too. By the way, if the Bengals miss the playoffs again, even if Joe's really good, he might be fourth. He might drop because he got to win. And that's part of it too. And it's a big year. It's a big year for Joe and the Bengals and protecting Joe.

Starting point is 00:19:34 Yeah, we'll get there in a second. The one thing that gets me into Orlovsky rankings is the arm strength for Joe Burrow coming in at seventh, ahead of Caleb Williams, Michael Penn, Extraord in Love. I don't know about that one. That one seems a little crazy to me. But then the second reaction, I think Joe's really good in that category, and he comes in seventh and second reaction too. So that's the Orlovsky rankings, obviously, not in the top ten.

Starting point is 00:19:58 Maybe not obviously, but not in the top ten for rushing ability. I think Joe's a good rusher, but obviously not a key part of his game. That being said, we'll go back to the tears from the athletic as we get into this last comment or this last segment. There are some guards out there that the Bengals apparently don't want. We'll just reiterate those just in case you're curious after practice with some protection issues on Wednesday. Coming up next. Today's show is brought to by Yahoo Fantasy. I have a bunch of Yahoo Fantasy drafts coming up over the next few weeks.

Starting point is 00:20:32 And look, NFL kickoff is almost here. the best part about the NFL season for me, outside of talking with Jake Liscoe every single day and talking with all the everydayers, is playing fantasy football on Yahoo! Fantasy, and you should too, whether you're a first-timer or a veteran making your millionth league to celebrate 28 years of fantasy football greatness, Yahoo! Fantasy is dropping 28 big new features over 28 days throughout August, really paying homage to Corey Dillon, if you really want to ask about it, or Josh Newton, if you want to look to the present and future. But to kick it off, Yahoo! Yahoo! fantasy just dropped guillotine leagues. I've never played in a guillotine league, but it's awesome because

Starting point is 00:21:09 basically you're in a league and the lowest scoring team gets eliminated each week until there's one team left standing. I'm going to try it out for the first time this year with Yahoo Fantasy. And with the season around the corner, now's the time to get your league together, whether you're into the classics, whether you want to try a guillotine league, or you want to play head-to-head in private leagues or just join a public league. Stay tuned for more killer announcements and start playing Yahoo! Fantasy football now at yahoofantasy.com slash locked on NFL. There's a quote in the Mike Sando piece that I mentioned earlier, but one of the evaluators, one of the voters, to me it's Mahomes and then Burrow, if I had to rank them,

Starting point is 00:21:49 a veteran offensive coach said, Burrow could be a one with a red cross on it. They don't protect it. And he gets the S-dash-dash-dash knocked out of him constantly, which obviously every Bengals fan knows well. We've been talking about the guard. a little bit more lately. We've been talking about it since March. They add Lucas Patrick in the draft. They skip on a second round guard after adding Lucas Patrick and bringing Cody Ford back in free agency,

Starting point is 00:22:23 despite there being some guard options out there. And now we're at a point where we're still talking about guys that are still available that have been available for months. There's one fewer now that Will Hernandez has signed. Brandon Sheriff maybe is retired. There's an article from Iowa's flagship where he went into the Iowa Hall of Fame that asserts that Brandon Sheriff is retired. But there are still a couple of options in particular, James,

Starting point is 00:22:52 that I think would probably be better than what they've got. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. The answer is yes. Should they sign a guard? The answer is yes.

Starting point is 00:23:02 I'm I it's been they've neglected it this offseason that's the answer that that's that's what they've done it's really frustrating because they've had their options they could have reunited like let's just say they wanted to go the familiar face route they could have put their pride aside and reunited with kevin zayler oh well that bridge is burned okay well guess what a top guard in the draft fell into your lap at pick 49 you didn't have to force it at 17 you didn't have to trade down you didn't have to do any of this you addressed your your biggest need which is defensive line help in round one and then protecting the franchise in round two it lined up perfectly and you went with a linebacker and it has nothing to do with demetrius knight it has everything to do with my goodness

Starting point is 00:23:47 you better protect joe and and so i look at that list there aren't many everyone's going to talk about dalton risner what's really interesting to me and the reason why i'm as critical as i am is i'm not sure they were ever in on Brandon Sheriff. Even if he was out there with a sign, hey, sign me, I'm ready to go. I don't think they were necessarily in. And there's been talk that they were in. I don't think so. I don't think they called him. And he was like, well, I don't know if I want to block for Joe Burrow or not. I'm thinking about retiring. I don't think it went that way. I'm not sure they were interested ever. And so you combine that with the Dalton Reisner. And fine, there's been a bunch of teams that have passed on him. And he's just been out there each and every year.

Starting point is 00:24:30 fine, but this was your plan. Like when you released Alex Kappa, your plan was Dylan Fairchild, who's been good so far, but it's early, and Lucas Patrick and bring back Cody Ford, that's not a good plan if that was your plan, and it feels like that was their plan. And if that was their plan, that's pretty embarrassed. I wonder if you give them true serum what they would say about how free agency

Starting point is 00:24:51 went. Like maybe there were other guards that they were interested in. I just don't know who. Because they weren't, I don't think they were willing to go after Zitler. They should have. like they should have and i don't think that bridge was burned like i don't know maybe it was maybe maybe maybe they've had the low ball offer when he went to the ravens a few years ago like maybe that was it but how's he not here then you know like he didn't sign a big deal

Starting point is 00:25:18 and he signed him with a team that's hoping to win seven games that's a nine just a one year nine million dollar contract with the titans for for kevin zitler there was the james daniels option off the injury, signed an $8 million per year deal, three-year deal with the dolphins. They obviously weren't in on Aaron Banks, who signs for nearly $20 million a year, Will Fries, freeze, whatever, for $17.5 million with the Vikings. Patrick McCarty gets $12.5 million from the Jaguars. A big payday for a guy that was largely a backup for his time in Baltimore. Mackay Beckton gets a two-year, $10 million per year deal from the Chargers.

Starting point is 00:25:58 I mean, Alex Kappa goes and gets five and a half million and tells you a little bit about the guard market. Bradley Bozeman, $3.25 million, Kevin Jenkins, who's apparently struggling in Cleveland, $3 million per year. So if they're not willing to touch the top of that market and they don't want to take the injury risk on Daniels, Zytler, you're right, is the one that continues to stand out. We're interested then. Don't appear to be interested now. the options out there now that like are markedly probably better like on paper better than what they have Dalton Riser certainly Shaq Mason probably and then there's some journeyman options like Cody White Hare just took a visit he's getting some interest around the league right now Mark Lewinsky

Starting point is 00:26:43 is a 10 year veteran neither of those guys are playing top end football those guys probably closer to Lucas Patrick at this point than than Riser Mason may be trending in that direction as well, but he's played a lot of good football in his career too, just a little bit older, 32 pretty soon. So those are the guys out there. That would be the one for me,

Starting point is 00:27:07 is Shaq. Go get Shaq. And I don't have a one, Reisner, Shaq, whatever, you know, pick one. Yeah, I just assume that they're out on Reisner. Maybe they're out on Shaq too.

Starting point is 00:27:20 Well, I think they're out on all these guys is where I was going. Like, These are guys that are out there that apparently the Bengals don't want. That's where I'm able to protect nine. You better. Because on paper, those guys are better than what you have. Let's not have another coach saying they don't protect them. He gets the S dash dash dash knocked out of him constantly.

Starting point is 00:27:40 Like imagine going into a season banking on like, oh, yeah, Joe's just going to be a magician again. Like, what the f? It's a weak link system, the offensive line. the Bengals appear, time to remedy this, there's time for this narrative to change, appear to have a weak link there. That will be one of the areas, of course,

Starting point is 00:28:02 we're watching in preseason game number two. We will get back to you on Sunday with all the things we're going to be watching for in preseason game number two, the guys that have a lot to prove the roster battles that will be updated after the starters, unless the plan has changed, and we'll find out maybe about that

Starting point is 00:28:20 in the next couple of days. should play more against Washington than they played against Philadelphia. We'll be back again on Sunday with that episode. Until then, thanks for listening to this episode of the Locktop Bengals podcast. Hoodeh, and have a go.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Joe Burrow Receives MAJOR Praise, Will Team Protect Him This Season?

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