Joe Burrow’s place on ESPN’s latest quarterback rankings comes with a familiar theme: the talent is unquestioned, but the availability questions keep dragging him down.
In Jeremy Fowler’s poll of NFL executives, coaches and scouts, the Bengals quarterback landed fourth overall in the league. That keeps Burrow in the upper tier of the position, even if it means he’s no longer sitting in the top three where he had been for the past two seasons.
“Burrow's durability concerns pushed him out of the top three, where he resided the past two seasons,” Fowler wrote. “Several voters took him out of the top five due to his 16 games missed since 2023. When it comes to pure quarterback play, though, Burrow is still considered the closest resemblance to Brady's game.”
That’s the kind of praise that tells you everything about how Burrow is viewed around the league. The injury concerns are real enough to affect the voting, but the pure quarterbacking still stacks up with the best of the best.
Burrow finished behind three names on the list, while landing ahead of Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and others. The exact order near the top is always going to spark debate, but the larger takeaway is clear: if you can roster one of the top four or five quarterbacks, you’re in good shape, because the drop-off after Jackson at five is steep.
For Burrow, the reason he isn’t higher is simple. It’s about availability, nothing more. And when his game is being compared to Brady’s, that’s not exactly a bad place to be.
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