Joe Burrow is hyping up the crowd with his latest Instagram story
By Kristen Wong
Another year, another dominant season from Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. What does Burrow have in store for 2022?
The 2021 Comeback Player of the Year enters this season with just as much swagger and the same lofty dream of winning it all. Burrow will once again be surrounded by elite weapons in Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd, and after Cincy's historic Super Bowl run in 2021, Burrow and company will be looking to replicate last year's level of success.
Winning the Super Bowl is indeed the dream for every NFL team, but perhaps the Bengals are dreaming harder than most. The team is solidly in win-now mode with most of their key roster pieces playing on dirt-cheap rookie contracts; for the next few years, though, Cincy's Super Bowl window is slowly but surely narrowing.
Following a productive offseason, the Bengals are ready to pick up where they left off, and no one is more prepared to embark on a ring-chasing campaign than Joey B himself.
Bengals' Joe Burrow makes a confident statement ahead of Week 1
Burrow is the kind of quarterback that teammates and fans would run through a wall for, and his confidence and coolness no doubt does wonders for team morale.
The Jessie Bates contract stalemate soured the Bengals' preseason, and it didn't help that Burrow missed the entire preseason due to an appendectomy.
Yet Burrow also played sparingly last preseason, featuring in just three snaps before putting together an awe-inspiring breakthrough season that culminated in a Super Bowl appearance. Burrow's lack of preseason reps shouldn't be an issue for the Bengals this year, nor should his passing accuracy or overall quarterback play.
Instead, Burrow's health takes the top priority given the star quarterback's troubling injury history --- mainly, that devastating ACL tear in 2020.
In 2022, taking care of his knee will be just as important as taking care of the ball. If Burrow can do both those things, he can achieve as much as glory as he did last season, and more.