Joe Burrow made one thing clear ahead of the Bengals’ opener: he sees Cincinnati as home, and he’s not entertaining any exit talk.
In an exclusive conversation with Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com, Burrow shut down the speculation that has followed him for years, both before the Bengals took him No. 1 overall in the 2020 NFL Draft and ever since.
"I'm here for the long haul," Burrow said. "I'm not going anywhere."
He reinforced that point with no hesitation.
"I'm just really proud to be quarterback of the Bengals," Burrow told Hobson. "I'm happy to be here.
I'm proud to represent the city of Cincinnati, state of Ohio, the Brown family. I'm just proud and I want to make everybody else proud, too."
Burrow’s words have long been picked apart and shaped to fit outside narratives, but he said his message is straightforward. He also explained why his phrasing sometimes leaves room for interpretation.
"I'm efficient with my words, and when I'm efficient with my words, that leaves some room for interpretation," Burrow said. "I mean what I say.
I'm here for the long haul. I'm not going anywhere.
I'm just trying to bring a now-or-never mentality to the day-by-day process. If you're not, what are you doing?
Attack the day with a championship mindset. The rest will take care of itself."
The backdrop matters here. Burrow has been compared to Andrew Luck by some and to Carson Palmer by others, but he’s making it clear he’s charting his own course. The conversation also comes after a stretch in which the Bengals have missed the playoffs for three straight years, a sharp turn from the days when they were coming off back-to-back AFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl appearance.
That earlier run had Cincinnati on the doorstep. After the January 2023 loss at Arrowhead Stadium, it would have been hard to imagine the next three seasons ending without a playoff berth.
Now, with additions including Dexter Lawrence and Bryan Cook, Burrow believes the Bengals have the kind of roster that can push them back into the Super Bowl picture.
"I just want to win this year. I just want to win," Burrow told Ja'Marr Chase last week.
"I think we're gonna have a really good team, a chance to win every game that we step foot on the field for, and I don't know about you, but I could really feel it in my bones, in my soul, in OTAs this year, different from years past. We brought in a lot of the right guys, a lot of the right people with the right mindsets to go and chase this goal of of winning a Super Bowl and winning as many games as we can and being the best possible team that we can."
Burrow’s message to the fan base was as direct as it gets: he’s staying, he believes in the group around him, and he wants results now.
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Bengals Have A Surprise New Receiver Fans Should Be Watching
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For Bengals fans, the appeal is obvious: Meyers brings a different backstory and a late-blooming resume into a receiver room that always seems to be one injury or one hot streak away from reshaping itself. His arrival comes amid plenty of AFC North movement elsewhere, but Cincinnatis interest is in whether he can turn a surprising roster spot into something more when the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]