For just the second time in his career, Joe Burrow saw some extended action for the Bengals in the club's preseason opener on Thursday, a 34-27 loss to the Eagles in Philadelphia. Burrow was near-perfect, as he fired just one incomplete pass while throwing for 123 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
But Burrow didn't see it that way. In fact, he was far from impressed with both his own performance and that of the Bengals as a whole, so much so that the very first thing he mentioned during his postgame press conference was not the two touchdown drives he helped complete, but the incomplete pass he threw, calling it "disappointing." He also wasn't pleased with how he threw the ball, which he felt was "average."
For himself, it wasn't that he did anything he particularly didn't like. He just expected more.
"I wouldn't say I didn't like anything," Burrow said. "I think for myself I could have been better. I missed the first throw. I put all the other ones where I wanted to put them. I would've liked to have spun it a little better consistently today. But we had scored two touchdowns, so go learn from a couple reps and get better."
The Bengals have started 0-2 in each of the last three seasons, missing the playoffs in two of those years. The slow starts have become such a focus in Cincinnati that coach Zac Taylor has strived to find more playing time for his starters this preseason, as opposed to the rest they were afforded in each of the last three campaigns.
And Burrow clearly isn't content to just go through the motions. These are game reps to him and he's treating them as such. The Bengals' eight penalties, which cost them 68 yards and one negated touchdown that Burrow eventually got back? Not going to cut it.
"We got to be better," Burrow said. "Too many procedural penalties, too many errors. Things like that are going to happen, but I think it just wasn't clean enough across the board."
Luckily for Cincinnati, it is still just the preseason. Time remains to clean up before the regular season opener in Cleveland against the Browns.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Joe Burrow Not Impressed by Near-Perfect Passer Rating, Two TDs in Preseason Opener.
