What's stopping the Cincinnati Bengals from making the most of Joe Burrow's career? A number of factors, but organizational leadership is a big one. And it starts at the very top.
*Nonagenarian owner* Mike Brown is just a tad out of touch with modern football. Any knowledge he's passing down to his progeny, in-laws, and yes-persons who'll run the team next is all based on prior glory days and a whole lot of losing in more recent decades.
Why not marry the moderate success stories of the past with a star player from that era who won a Super Bowl elsewhere, and is publicly offering his services to help the cause in present day? Seems sensible to me!
Intrigued by potential front office role, Andrew Whitworth explains what's ailing the Bengals
Retired left tackle Andrew Whitworth witnessed his Bengals era unravel once franchise quarterback and No. 1 overall pick Carson Palmer demanded a trade. He's spoken about some similarities between Palmer and Burrow in the past, but in a new interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer's Kelsey Conway, Whitworth dove into the deeper issues he sees with the Bengals franchise.
But before we get into all that, it's worth noting that Whitworth expressed some interest in a future front office role.
"I’m not interested in coaching, but I would love to be in a front office. I would love to be a part of helping set the culture and identity and process for how we do engineering and the way we go about things, creating those standards, and then be able to communicate that down throughout the building. [...] It's not something that I would say, I'm aspiring to do. But it's something that I would say, if I was ever going to do it, that’s kind of the thing I would want to do, is have a chance to go back to Cincinnati or LA and be in some kind of role like that."
That wound up being the last answer of his from Conway's Q&A. Run it back to the top of the article, though, and you can see how Whitworth laid out a compelling case to, at the very least, be an invaluable consultant for the Bengals.
Whitworth was part of the Los Angeles Rams team that beat the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI with one of the most radical win-now approaches in the history of sports. It's not that Whitworth is advocating for the Bengals to go several years without first-round picks, but it's more about taking the big swing in the first place.
As he puts it, the purpose-driven aggression aims to prove to Burrow and the rest of the locker room that they're willing to actually go all-in for that elusive Lombardi Trophy. In a catchphrase, "shoot your shot."
"Shooting your shot is not paying guys that have been there, that have proven that they earned money. Shooting a shot is like, this is something that seems a little risky, and we're putting ourselves out there, but it's what we think gets us over the hump. [...] The same amount of money is coming in and out of that building no matter what. The same picks are coming every year no matter what. That’s kind of my point. At what time do you go, Hey, listen, we've done it one way for forever. What does it really hurt? Like in reality, what does it really hurt to take a couple swings, even though it's not the way we've always done it, take a couple swings and show that we're willing to, like, think about it."
Burrow has insisted in the past that the Super Bowl window for Cincinnati is his entire career. However, that hasn't quite proven true, through no real fault of his own.
The Bengals haven't made the playoffs in the last three seasons. If they aren't careful, Burrow could indeed go the Palmer route of trying to force his way out of the Queen City via trade. No shortage of suitors would line up for Joe Shiesty, especially if he makes it through 2026 healthy.
Some of the bad results on the field of late can be attributed to Burrow's two major injuries in 2023 and 2025. That said, while the offseason thus far has been decent in terms of free-agent additions, it's nowhere close to a true "all-in" approach to maximize the roster.
As far as how Whitworth views the Bengals' collective conservatism having a Palmer-esque impact on Burrow, he distilled that point to a simple, hypothetical question. You can almost be certain Burrow has asked this exact same question to himself behind closed doors — whether in private or whilst venting his frustrations to a trusted confidante.
"You don't ever want those guys to ask, 'Is this the place I'm going to be able to get it done?' And I think you’ve got to continue to do things to make sure (they) know you're going to do whatever it takes."
The thing is, Burrow and Whitworth do have a friendship. Whit isn't quoting Joe directly, yet it's hard not to read between the lines here and suspect that they've had these types of conversations.
Whitworth did advocate for a Maxx Crosby trade, but it wasn't necessarily about trading for that particular player. It was the principle of the thing. A loud-statement demonstration that the front office will do whatever it takes to deliver a Super Bowl parade for downtown Cincinnati.
Now that the first wave of free agency is finished, the NFL Draft is less than a month away. The Bengals are in range to draft a blue-chip player with the 10th overall pick. They could also trade it for a proven veteran, but that scenario is about as probable as worldwide public disclosure of extraterrestrial beings living among us on Earth.
The mindset that Whitworth is advocating for represents a strong, credible voice that needs to be factored into Cincinnati's decision-making.