Bengals’ Joe Burrow barely cracks top-10 QB rankings

The Cincinnati Bengals have a franchise superstar in Joe Burrow, but some NFL pundits still don’t consider him a Tier 1 quarterback.

Burrow has unbelievable accuracy, unbreakable poise, and a burgeoning relationship with each of his wide receivers. So what is he missing?

According to The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz, arm talent.

Ruiz ranked the league’s best quarterbacks ahead of Week 1 and had Burrow in ninth place, below Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott, and Lamar Jackson:

"Burrow’s arm is really the only thing keeping him from breaking into the most elite tier. That doesn’t mean he’s banished to Tier 2 for the rest of his career. We’ve seen other quarterbacks make mechanical tweaks to add more zip to their throws, and Burrow can already make 95 percent of the passes he’s asked to make.If/when he starts making the other 5 percent consistently, he might stake a claim to the top spot in these rankings—and I’ll need to delete some tweets."

The only silver lining is that Burrow’s Super Bowl rival, Matthew Stafford, doesn’t even make the top-10, getting knocked down a few pegs for his occasionally careless throws.

Bengals’ Joe Burrow gets ranked just ninth in overall QB rankings

It’s understandable to see Burrow ranked below the likes of Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Tom Brady, but seeing someone like Dak Prescott get the nod before him makes us scratch our heads a bit.

This isn’t even about playoff experience — it’s about pure talent and skill. Burrow recorded a league-high 70.4 percent pass completion rate last season; in Prescott’s six years in the league, he hasn’t even come close to that.

It took Prescott four years to post his first 4,000-plus passing yard season; it only took Burrow two, and his injury-shortened rookie season in the NFL doesn’t really count.

Both Burrow and Prescott have similar levels of “arm talent,” yet Prescott gets the edge given his pre-snap presence and overall know-how, no doubt the product of his many years of experience.

This isn’t meant to be a takedown of Prescott but more so a serious inquiry as to why Burrow isn’t ranked higher. His relationships with his pass-catchers cannot be ignored as Burrow’s high-octane offense helped him defeat some of the best in the league including the Kansas City Chiefs.

Prescott may indeed be an “underrated” quarterback as Ruiz suggests, but until he proves he can lead a team deep into the postseason (there’s our little playoff dig), we’re taking Burrow over him any day of the week.