It can be argued that the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2025 season went down as soon as Joe Burrow suffered a significant turf toe injury last September. While Burrow came back from the injury sooner than expected, it was too late to reverse the damage of a 2-8 record with Jake Browning and Joe Flacco as the primary starters and it led to Burrow having a cryptic press conference last December that led to speculation about his future.
With that, any update about Joe Burrow is a good one and Zac Taylor delivered on Tuesday while speaking to reporters including ESPN 1530’s Mike Petraglia.
“He looks great,” Taylor said. “He’s in shape and ready to go.”
The Bengals also posted a video of Burrow dancing around and enjoying his time on the practice field on their X account and it could be a great sign for Cincinnati’s hopes for the 2026 season.
Joe Burrow is happy and healthy entering Bengals offseason workouts
A healthy Burrow is obviously a benefit for the Bengals. Cincinnati hasn’t made the playoffs since making back-to-back appearances in 2021 and 2022 and a torn ligament in his throwing wrist ended his 2023 campaign after 10 games. Burrow returned with a vengeance in 2024, leading the NFL with 4,918 yards and 43 touchdowns and played well around his toe injury last year with 1,809 yards, 17 touchdowns and five interceptions over eight games.
But Burrow’s health is only part of the equation. The Bengals have also tried to keep Burrow happy over the past couple of years, extending top targets Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins but the holes around them limited the team’s success, producing a 19-16 record when Burrow starts over the past three seasons.
That led to frustration at the end of the season in an infamous press conference, but the Bengals have responded with an aggressive offseason. Free agency brought reinforcements for a leaky defense including defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, edge rusher Boye Mafe and safeties Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger. And the Bengals took it a step further by trading the 10th overall pick in last month’s draft to acquire Dexter Lawrence from the New York Giants.
The moves clearly grabbed the attention of Burrow and it led to a rejuvenation of sorts as he discussed the Bengals’ offseason in an interview with Nick Remsen of Vanity Fair.
“I’m really excited about the moves we made this offseason. We need to get better, so it was exciting to see the initiative from everybody in the organization to realize that we’re in this exciting stage. We’re in our primes playing great football. Finding guys like Dexter and Bryan Cook [...] to, you know, really solidify that defense so the young guys can also kind of rise up. We’re really going to try to achieve what we want to achieve. This is fun...But soon, it’s going to be our job to go out on the field and execute.”
Zac Taylor also noticed a happier Burrow when speaking to reporters and the leadership his quarterback has shown during the early days of offseason workouts.
“Yeah, he’s been great,” Taylor said via CBS Cincinnati’s Yanni Tragellis. “I mean, he’ll be able to walk through that whenever he speaks, but it’s great to have him here and he’s a great leader on our team, so it’s great to see him here.”
It’s important to note that workouts are voluntary at this stage of the offseason and if Burrow was truly unhappy, he’d likely be training somewhere else. Things could also change in an instant if the Bengals can’t turn around some of their losses into wins during the upcoming season. But for now, things feel like they’re trending in the right direction and can hopefully set Cincinnati up for a rebound year in 2026.
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