It hasn't mattered that Joe Burrow is back under center for the Cincinnati Bengals these past few weeks. The team looked as bad as they had all season on Sunday, getting shut out at home against the Baltimore Ravens and being officially eliminated from playoff contention.
Nothing went right in the 24-0 loss to the Ravens and it was a bad time for the Bengals to put up a goose egg considering the comments that Joe Burrow had made earlier in the week. A lot of people had their eyes on this Bengals-Ravens matchup because of those comments where the Bengals signal caller alluded to not having fun anymore.
Dan Patrick was one of those people curious as to how Burrow would perform after making those comments. He sounded off about the 24-0 shutout loss on his show on Monday morning and questioned what happens next for the Bengals organization.
"I was really curious how Joe Burrow was gonna play this weekend because of the comments earlier in the week where it sounded really dark. Like 'Do I want to play if I'm not having fun? What am I doing?' ... And then you watch [the game]. Man, put a stamp on it and mail it in. That was embarrassing. Embarrassing," Patrick said. "Look, the Ravens are potentially a good team, they're not that much better than the Bengals and this is a Bengal team that beat Baltimore a couple of weeks ago. But you start to wonder as they kind of limp to the finish line, 'What is the offseason going to be like?'"
Dan Patrick delivers tough truth Bengals fans won’t enjoy hearing
This is fair criticism from Patrick or from anyone who might make similar comments. What will the offseason be like for the Bengals amid all of this Burrow drama? If your franchise quarterback is questioning why he's even playing the game anymore and the team continues to struggle with him in his prime, what does that mean for his future in Cincinnati or in the league?
The fact of the matter is that Duke Tobin and the rest of the Bengals front office need to do what they can to make sure this upcoming offseason is looked at as a success. They did that in the 2021 offseason, bringing in a lot of key defensive players to reshape that side of the ball and look how that panned out for the team.
The Bengals will hold a top-10 pick in the draft (or should anyway) and will face a third-place schedule next year. They can absolutely bounce back and be in the Super Bowl contention conversations again but it won't happen if changes aren't made.
The time to spring into action and get this roster improved has never been more important and the Bengals might have bigger questions to answer if they can't make the most of this offseason.