The Bengals don’t need to squint very hard to find quarterbacks better than Will Levis. They have at least two of them on the roster, and there’s an argument for a third.
That’s what makes Levis’ weekend comment so easy to pick apart. The Tennessee Titans quarterback said, “ There are not 32 quarterbacks better than me. I know that for sure,” and while he may have been talking about NFL starters, Cincinnati’s room offers a pretty blunt rebuttal.
Joe Burrow is the obvious one. The other Joe is the one who makes this conversation more interesting.
Joe Flacco, Cincinnati’s backup, has spent enough time around the league to know exactly where he stands in these kinds of debates. He also happens to have the kind of recent production that makes Levis’ claim look a lot less sturdy.
In 2025, Flacco played 13 games, first with the Cleveland Browns and then with the Bengals after Cincinnati traded for him following Joe Burrow’s injury. Over nine games in stripes, he threw for 1,664 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions, finishing with a 91.0 passer rating.
That stretch included a 471-yard, four-touchdown outburst against the Chicago Bears, all while battling through a painful AC joint injury in his throwing shoulder.
Levis’ most recent full season doesn’t stack up nearly as cleanly. In 2024, he played 12 games and finished with 2,091 yards, 13 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and an 81.4 passer rating.
So if the Bengals were drawing a line through Levis’ quote, Flacco would be the first name circled.
Josh Johnson belongs in the discussion too, even if he probably wasn’t in Levis’ head when he made the statement. Cincinnati’s third quarterback is almost 15 years older than Levis, and Levis has the kind of arm strength Johnson has never really been known for.
But Johnson’s five appearances and two starts for the Washington Commanders last season produced a 63% completion rate, a 55.6 QBR, and a 74.0 passer rating. Levis, by comparison, posted a 63.1 completion percentage, a 25.2 QBR, and that 81.4 passer rating in 2024.
On paper, most people would still lean Levis over Johnson because of age, arm strength, and draft status. But the numbers don’t make the gap feel as wide as the names might suggest, and Levis’ injury that kept him out of the 2025 season only tightens things up for some evaluators.
The bigger issue for Levis is that he’s not just fighting the Bengals’ depth chart in theory. Around the league, backup quarterback rankings have already put Flacco near the top.
CBS Sports ranked him as the third-best No. 2, behind Mac Jones and the first overall pick, Fernando Mendoza, and also slotted Cincinnati second among the best quarterback situations. Bleacher Report was even more bullish on Flacco, ranking him second overall, while Levis landed 10th.
Levis did crack the top 10 there, but the list also included names like Dillon Gabriel and Anthony Richardson, which helps explain how he might talk himself into the idea that he’s ahead of more people than the average fan would guess.
For now, though, Levis is stuck in a three-way battle in Tennessee for one backup job with Mitch Trubisky and Hendon Hooker. That doesn’t make him automatically worse than either one, and it certainly doesn’t make him a starting quarterback for teams like the Steelers, Browns, or Falcons. But it does leave him in a crowded fight for relevance while Cincinnati can look at its own room and say with a straight face that it already has two quarterbacks better than him, and maybe a possible third.
And if a team eventually comes calling for Flacco because one of the league’s better 32 quarterbacks can’t play, the Bengals would be wise to listen. In that scenario, they’d need to be ready to make a move of their own, whether that means a quarterback like Levis or another capable arm.
Until then, Cincinnati has no reason to put Levis anywhere near Flacco on its board. Not now. And maybe not Johnson either.
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