Tyler Boyd could quickly turn into Joe Burrow’s favorite weapon

Since joining the Bengals, Tyler Boyd hasn’t been shy about sharing his excitement of a potentially special connection with Joe Burrow.

Over the past few years, Tyler Boyd has taken the NFL by storm, becoming one of the best slot wide receivers in the game. This has helped the Bengals continue to move the ball down the field even with a number of injuries and shaky quarterback play from Andy Dalton at times. While everyone was excited when Cincinnati was able to draft first overall and select Joe Burrow, perhaps nobody was more elated than Boyd.

Burrow showed a lot of skills in college, but one of his specialties was finding his slot receiver, Justin Jefferson. In the magical 2019 year, Jefferson hauled in 1,540 yards and 18 touchdowns on 111 receptions for the Tigers. This is incredible production for a slot wide receiver and is a testament to how good Burrow is at finding players with that kind of skillset.

Burrow’s skillset matches Tyler Boyd’s perfectly

Burrow showed little fear throwing over the middle of the field and allowing his guys to make a catch and pick up yards. With A.J. Green and Tee Higgins/John Ross on the outside, Boyd should have some room to operate in the middle of the field. Burrow should be able to find him consistently and help Boyd build on his top season last year.

Boyd recently said the Bengals have been working on implementing some of the same schemes Burrow used at LSU into the Cincinnati playbook so that they can best utilize the Burrow to Boyd connection. Especially in an offseason that was as weird as this one, finding ways to lessen the transition for Burrow is going to be important.

"“He’s [Burrow] not shying away from none of the competitiveness and shying away from the position that we want him to be in. I feel like he’s handling everything pretty well.” -Tyler Boyd on Joe Burrow"

If Burrow is able to avoid mistakes and find Boyd in the middle of the field as he did with Jefferson, this could be a career year for Tyler Boyd. He has already shown that he has the skills needed to be one of the best in the NFL. Now he gets to add a quarterback that excels at throwing to the slot. This could be a combination that has many years of success in Cincinnati.