Here we go again.
Nearly a month after ESPN’s Adam Schefter ignited trade chatter around Joe Burrow, the Cincinnati Bengals’ franchise quarterback is back on the rumor mill. Burrow rekindled the fire with a cryptic presser in front of the Cincinnati media on Wednesday, during which he sounded uncertain about his future with the Bengals.
“If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it,” Burrow said. “I have been through a lot. If it’s not fun, then what am I doing it for?”
When asked whether he had something on his mind, Burrow responded, “There’s just a lot of things going on right now.”
In response to Burrow’s latest comments, many fans on X have begun to link Burrow to New York once again.
Former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky joined the party, naming the Jets among three teams who should be “on the phone today” figuring out how to acquire Burrow, alongside the Las Vegas Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers.
While Burrow’s presser sparked trade chatter on social media, it can be argued that his comments and overall tone suggested he was closer to pondering whether he’d like to continue playing football than plotting a trade request.
It’s hard not to think back to Andrew Luck’s shocking retirement at just under 30 years old. After seven injury-ravaged NFL seasons, the former first overall pick pulled the plug on his career while he was still at the height of his superpowers. Burrow is in a similar boat. He’s a former first overall pick who has endured six seasons of frequent injuries behind a porous Bengals offensive line. Next December, he’ll turn 30.
It would be presumptuous for anyone to make assumptions about Burrow’s intentions by reading too deeply into his comments at a press conference. Perhaps he has no intentions of retiring or even leaving Cincinnati.
Nonetheless, his media availability on Wednesday was nothing if not peculiar, and it will only spark further debate about his future in Cincinnati—and the NFL in general. Considering the Jets’ well-known position as a quarterback-needy team with the best arsenal of assets in the league, they will continuously be mentioned whenever Burrow reemerges in trade rumors.
