Joe Burrow has been to one Super Bowl entering his sixth NFL season and CBS Sports's Jeff Kerr thinks he's under legitimate pressure to win the big game.
He ranked Burrow fifth among quarterbacks under the most pressure to win a Super Bowl as the 2025 NFL season approaches.
"The 2024 Bengals allowed the most points per game in losses in NFL history (27.8), and had six losses with 25+ points last season," Kerr noted. "Burrow was the third quarterback in league history with 40+ passing touchdowns in a season (43) who missed the playoffs while leading the league with 4,918 passing yards. So why is there pressure on Burrow? The Bengals need Burrow to perform at a high level every week to win games, and lose games when Burrow is just 'good.' Burrow has a loaded group of pass catchers, but a poor offensive line and a bad defense.
"He has to play excellent in order for the Bengals to win football games. Perhaps if the Bengals get their roster construction figured out, Burrow can make deep playoff runs again. His quarterback success will be skewed until that's figured out."
It's a commentary on the Bengals roster and less on Burrow's play game-to-game. The franchise passer is getting paid to own that pressure, but he can't do it all by himself in a sport with 22 players on the field each snap.
Burrow's earned that pressure and better defensive/special teams execution will relieve some of it this fall. He ranked behind Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen among quarterbacks on the list.