Ex-NFL QB spews Joe Burrow ignorance and Bengals Twitter makes him pay

Shout out to former NFL quarterback Kurt Benkert for gassing up the engagement with his lack of ball knowledge when it comes to Cincinnati Bengals superstar Joe Burrow.

Benkert's bonkers assertions about how much Burrow benefited from the situation he was drafted into sent the greater Bengals X/Twitter community into a frenzy of fact-based retorts that could drive even the thickest-skinned Madden YouTuber/content creator into a spiral of questioning one's self-worth.

We can hold two truths at the same time: Benkert is good at what he does and deserves respect for getting as far as he did as a football player. And, he's way too much of a Bengals-specific casual to say what he said and compare Burrow to the QBs he compared him to.

Kurt Benkert waded into the Bengals' Twitter jungle and wasn't welcomed kindly

No doubt raking in the big bucks for his dead-brained analysis, Kurt Benkert got me and many other Bengals stans/media personalities fired up from a mere X post/tweet about Joe Burrow. It was the sort of misguided, apples-to-oranges fodder that a passionate Burrow loyalist lives for.

I'm so proud of the Bengals Twitter community. Speaking in an unbiased way here, they're some of the most knowledgeable football folk you'll find on the cesspool that social media can be.

Just look at some of these reactive beauties, first on the point that Burrow was told by many outsiders to pull an Eli Manning and force a trade away from Cincinnati:

I'm telling you, it's a special kind of receipt-carrying bitter world out here on these Bengals social media streets.

Not to say that Kyler Murray landed in a phenomenal situation with the Arizona Cardinals. Nor did Jared Goff get off on the right foot with the Rams. But come on now.

A generational coach in Sean McVay came to Goff's rescue, and despite Kyler's individual brilliance, there was a literal clause inserted into his second contract to better divide his time between a gaming screen and an all-22 film screen.

You can't convince me — or many others who know better — that the Cardinals wouldn't be exponentially better off if you swapped Kyler out for Joe Brrr.

This is just sheer nonsense of the highest order. We're on to Cincinnati, er, more of my own personal analysis of this Benkert debacle, supplemented throughout with more X/Twitter Bengals Benkert bullying.

Nextly (a new word I'm testing out), putting Burrow "in a vacuum" with Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen isn't fair either. Benkert immediately contradicts the point he laid out about Kyler and Goff by going there in the next sentence. Dude is all over the map.

Jackson landed with a Baltimore Ravens franchise that is among the most stable in all of football. They wisely built an offense around his strengths and allowed him to develop organically on the field, all the while fielding an elite defense and winning culture under John Harbaugh. Heck, Joe Flacco was the starter for half a season before Jackson took the reins.

The Buffalo Bills were a freaking playoff team before they drafted Josh Allen. They gave him two full seasons of trial-and-error on game days — including an embarrassing playoff debut that he lost — before he was counted on to be an elite player.

Shall we juxtapose further?

Burrow waltzed into Cincinnati during the COVID-19 pandemic, still expected to carry an entire franchise from the brink of irrelevant oblivion. He mangled his knee as a rookie due to the woeful offensive line and supporting cast around him. Then, all he did was rally back from that brutal injury and lift the Bengals to a Super Bowl appearance.

Yes, having Ja'Marr Chase was a big factor in Cincinnati's stunning run through the AFC. No, there was no guarantee a rising second-year Tee Higgins and a rookie Chase would've popped as much as they would have without Burrow chucking them the rock.

Burrow also still had to face the likes of Aaron Donald, Von Miller, and Leonard Floyd in Super Bowl LVI with practice squad-caliber pass protectors in front of him. Damn near brought home that Lombardi Trophy, too. Allen and Jackson haven't sniffed being that close to Super Bowl glory — and they've been in the league longer!

Notice, too, that — pardon the abrupt circle-back — Goff was the QB of that Rams team and had been to a Super Bowl before (scored 3 points) then until they figured out they could upgrade with Matthew Stafford.

Try throwing even the current, much-improved Goff onto the Bengals that year and see how far they would've gotten.

Is it really true that Burrow has more help than any other top-flight QB? Absolutely not, and I can't fathom how anyone can say that with a straight face short of serving as a rage-baiting troll. Allow me to expound a little further beyond the confines of Benkert's abominable take.

Oh, and the one great hope Burrow can typically bank on from the Bengals' defense? That'd be Trey Hendrickson, who's still holding in for a new contract because the organization doesn't recognize he has far less wear and tear than a typical 30-year-old defensive end and won't pay him what he's worth.

Think that's all I'll say for the time being on this. Kurt Benkert missed the mark here to put it in the kindest terms possible.