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The Bengals have a quarterback franchise, already one of the best in the league. With this luxury comes responsibility and the Bengalis seem to realize it.
“He’s the real deal,” Duke Tobin, director of the Bengals team, said on Tuesday about Joe Burrow, via ESPN.com’s Ben Baby. “Our job, as I said when we elected him, is to support him in the best way we can. This league is for quarterbacks. And when you have one, you have to support it in the best way you can. “
Amen to that. And Burrow’s support means not only putting better players around him (especially offensive linemen), but also convincing those players to play for the Bengals. The appeal of the game with Burrow, no matter how strong, will only get this far. At one point, Bengalis will have to change the way they do business, starting with a full payment guarantee after the first year of the veteran’s contract.
“I know what the story is,” coach Zach Taylor told reporters on ESPN.com. “Understood. We do not want our quarterback to be fired or hit like him. At the same time, the other side is that these guys did a lot of great things for us. ”
He is right, but they did not do enough to win the Super Bowl, largely because the offensive line could not prevent Rams’ defensive line from creating chaos at key moments of the match. So, although the line was not a significant enough obligation to prevent the team from winning the AFC, this was definitely the reason (if not the reason) for the Bengals failing to bring their first Lombardi Trophy.