Joe Burrow is finally getting the kind of quarterback respect his play has demanded.
FanSided’s latest QB rankings put the Bengals star at No. 2 overall, trailing only Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills in a panel-driven evaluation that graded quarterbacks on a 1-to-12 scale. Burrow received the lone 12 from the author contributing to the rankings, but he wasn’t the only one high on Cincinnati’s franchise quarterback. In the top tier, Allen finished with an 11.72 average, Burrow followed at 11.05, Patrick Mahomes came in at 10.79, and Lamar Jackson landed at 10.56.
For Burrow, the placement feels like overdue recognition after a stretch in which team results have too often colored the conversation around him. He was buried by injury issues in 2023 and 2025, and between those seasons came a 2024 run that looked every bit like an MVP campaign. Burrow led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns that year despite brutal protection up front and a defense that couldn’t hold up its end.
That Bengals defense was so leaky that Cincinnati still missed the postseason at 9-8, wasting what should have been a signature year for Burrow.
Now the picture looks different. Burrow is healthy again, playing like an MVP candidate, and the Bengals are 6-2 heading into Sunday night’s AFC North showdown with the Pittsburgh Steelers. That combination has pushed him right back into the center of the league’s quarterback conversation.
The rankings also reflect a broader shift in how Cincinnati is being viewed. The Bengals are showing up in major power rankings as a team in the top seven range, but the case can be made that they belong even higher. Burrow is the biggest reason why.
There’s still a playoff blemish hanging over the last three seasons, and that matters in a league where quarterback legacies are often built in January. But the source of the frustration has been clear: Burrow hasn’t had enough help. The defense has been the missing piece, and Cincinnati’s new-look front led by Dexter Lawrence is now supposed to give him something closer to what he needs.
If that unit can make a play or two in the biggest moments, the Bengals have a real path to making noise. And if Allen falls short again, or if Cincinnati goes deeper than Buffalo in the playoffs, the argument for Burrow as the NFL’s top quarterback only gets stronger.
For now, the rankings say what the eye test has been saying for a while: Burrow’s greatness is no longer easy to ignore.
In Other News...
Joe Burrows Home Life Now Comes With One Serious Downside
Joe Burrows off-field profile has grown right alongside his status as the Bengals franchise quarterback, and so has his property footprint in Cincinnati. After buying a home in the city in 2020, he added a $7.5 million estate overlooking the Ohio River in 2023, a place that reflected both his success and his decision to plant deeper roots in the area.
But the upside of that kind of home life comes with a clear downside. In December 2024, while Burrow was away, the estate was burglarized and roughly $300,000 worth of belongings were taken, an unsettling intrusion that prompted him to speak publicly about privacy concerns. For a player whose life is already lived under a microscope, the incident served as a reminder that even home can come with a price. [Read more 🡒]
Joe Burrows Start Has Put The AFC North On Notice
Joe Burrow has wasted no time putting the rest of the AFC North on alert. Through the first stretch of the 2026 season, the Bengals quarterback has opened with four straight games of four or more combined passing and rushing touchdowns, a run that puts him in rare company with Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Dan Marino and leaves him just one game shy of Peyton Mannings mark.
It has helped Cincinnati get to 6-2 and settle into second place in the division as the calendar turns toward a pivotal Week 10 matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Bengals have given themselves a strong early platform, but the bigger question now is whether Burrow can keep this pace going against a division rival that will be paying close attention. [Read more 🡒]
Orlando Brown Jr. Knows This Bengals-Steelers Game Feels Different
The Bengals are headed into one of those late-season measuring-stick games that can reshape a division race in a hurry, and Orlando Brown Jr. knows the temperature is different. With Cincinnati and Pittsburgh both sitting at 6-2, Sundays matchup carries first-place stakes in the AFC North, the kind of setting that tends to sharpen every detail and raise the noise level around the building.
Brown framed it as more than just another date on the schedule, pointing to how much the game means to the players and the fans who follow them. For Cincinnati, the focus starts up front, where the offensive line has to give Joe Burrow the kind of protection and rhythm that can hold up in a game with this much weight behind it. [Read more 🡒]