Former LSU star Joe Burrow will be the No. 1 overall pick in next week’s 2020 NFL Draft, but given Burrow’s outstanding yet short resume and the Bengals’ record over the last four seasons (21-42-1) and their 29-year playoff win drought, not every analyst is convinced that Burrow will have the best chance to succeed among the rookie QB class.
Burrow has personally squashed the idea that he doesn’t want to end up in Cincinnati, telling reporters during the combine he’s going to show up, and according to ESPN Draft expert Mel Kiper Jr., Burrow will have every chance to succeed with the Bengals. In a fiery segment on Get Up!, Kiper said he was sick of the “garbage” claims that Cincinnati is a terrible destination.
“I’m disgusted by it, Greeny. It makes me sick. And I’ve been screaming about this for months. I hear this garbage everybody wants to spew about the Bengals, it’s ‘the horrible place to go, it’s awful. You’ve got no chance for a quarterback to have success.’
What are you, dreaming? You want to just throw out inaccurate information? Fine! But it makes me sick! ’81 and ’88 may be too long ago, but they won in ’81 with Ken Anderson, and ’88 with Boomer Esiason. If that’s too far, removed, fine. Let’s fast-forward to 2011 to 2015. That’s not 100 years ago, guys. They had five straight winning seasons, five straight playoff appearances. Should have beat Pittsburgh, it was a penalty late that cost them that opportunity. They had an 11- and 12-win season mixed in during those five straight years of getting to the playoffs. With Carson Palmer, he got hurt in a playoff game, or they may have won that game. Andy Dalton had success.
So this notion that Joe Burrow’s going to a place that’s never won, never had success, never had a quarterback do anything is utterly ridiculous.”
