The Cincinnati Bengals’ 2025 season isn’t officially over, but for all practical purposes, the playoff door has slammed shut. After a shutout loss to the Ravens, the scoreboard wasn’t the biggest story. The real headline came days earlier, when Joe Burrow made some eye-opening comments that offered a rare glimpse into the mindset of one of the league’s most competitive quarterbacks.
“If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing this,” Burrow said. “I have been through a lot.
If it's not fun, then what am I doing it for? That is the mindset I am trying to bring to the table.”
That’s not your standard post-practice soundbite. That’s a quarterback-one who’s been the face of the franchise and a symbol of resilience-questioning the joy he once found in the game.
And when a player like Burrow, known for his swagger and unshakable confidence, starts talking like that, it’s going to raise eyebrows. It certainly did for longtime host Dan Patrick, who described the comments as “dark.”
And honestly, that’s not far off.
Former NFL quarterback and Heisman winner Robert Griffin III joined Patrick’s show this week and didn’t sugarcoat the situation. When asked if Bengals fans should be concerned, RG3 didn’t hesitate.
“Oh, no, they should be,” he said. “Anytime a guy that competitive-the one who was smoking cigars and changed his last name on the back of his jersey at LSU to ‘Burreaux’-when that guy comes out and says, ‘Man, I don’t know if I love this anymore,’ that’s a problem.”
Griffin’s take is grounded in experience. He’s been there.
He knows what it’s like to carry the weight of a franchise and to battle through injuries, expectations, and the mental toll that comes with it. And he made a key distinction: this isn’t a Carson Palmer situation, where locker room dynamics and off-field frustration pushed a quarterback away.
Burrow has his guys-Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Joe Mixon. This is different.
This is deeper.
Dan Patrick took it a step further, comparing Burrow’s situation to Andrew Luck’s. And that’s where things start to feel a little too real for Bengals fans.
Like Luck, Burrow has dealt with a shaky offensive line early in his career. Like Luck, he’s absorbed more hits than a franchise quarterback should.
And like Luck, he’s 29 years old and already sounding like a player weighing his future.
Griffin didn’t shy away from the comparison.
“When you go out there and throw for a gazillion touchdowns and 7,000 yards and you still lose-and it’s not close, like you’re not even sniffing the playoffs-and then you’re getting hurt year after year after year… that’s where I think Joe Burrow is kind of burning himself out,” Griffin said. “He’s made enough money.
I understood why Andrew [Luck] made the decision he made. He said, ‘I’ve taken care of my family.
I’ve enjoyed the game. I’m good.’
And I could understand why Joe Burrow would be in that position.”
That’s a tough pill for Bengals fans to swallow. Burrow has been everything the franchise hoped for and more.
He brought swagger back to Cincinnati. He made the Bengals relevant again.
But now, with another season slipping away and injuries piling up, he sounds like a player searching for something he’s not sure he can find in this current setup.
Griffin added that the only thing that might reignite Burrow’s fire is the locker room itself.
“If you’re any of those guys on that team,” he said, “you’ve got to be trying to convince him-‘Hey man, I know this is tough, but we need you.’ I think that’s the only thing that’ll get Joe Burrow back into it-the guys in that locker room really putting their arms around him and saying, ‘We got your back, man.’”
That’s what it might come down to. Not a coaching change.
Not a new scheme. Not even a contract extension.
Just a group of teammates reminding their quarterback why he fell in love with the game in the first place.
And that’s the hard part. Because this isn’t about stats or wins anymore. This is about a player who’s given everything he has and is now asking himself if it’s still worth it.
The Bengals have a lot to figure out this offseason, but none of it matters more than this: how do you help Joe Burrow find joy in football again? Because until they solve that, nothing else-no draft pick, no free agent signing-will matter quite as much.