{"id":725595,"date":"2026-06-09T17:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/725595\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:35:11","slug":"biggest-question-facing-joe-burrow-ahead-of-2026-season-surfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/725595\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Question Facing Joe Burrow Ahead of 2026 Season Surfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN’s Dan Graziano\u00a0broke down<\/a>\u00a0the biggest question surrounding each NFL team’s starting quarterback this coming season, and Joe Burrow’s is pretty easy to pluck for Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

It’s all about health this fall after Burrow’s gone through brutal injuries for a good chunk of his career so far.<\/p>\n

Can He Stay Healthy?\"Cincinnati<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) is injured on a play in the second quarter of the NFL Week 2 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Jacksonville Jaguars at Paycor Stadium in downtown Cincinnati on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025. The Jaguars led 17-10 at halftime. | Sam Greene\/The Enquirer \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

“The Bengals return all 11 offensive starters. They spent the offseason\u00a0beefing up a defense that has been the main reason for their recent underachievement,”\u00a0Graziano wrote<\/a>. “They are the only team in their division that did not change head coaches this offseason. And their schedule ranks the third easiest in the league, based on the 2025 record of their opponents. It is all set up for Burrow & Co. to finally return to the postseason, and maybe even make another run at the Super Bowl title that\u00a0eluded them\u00a0five seasons ago. But as great as Burrow is when he’s on the field, he has to do a better job of staying there. He has missed at least six games due to injury in three of his six NFL seasons. He\u00a0missed nine\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0Bengals<\/a> have had well-documented pass protection issues during Burrow’s time in Cincinnati, but he also hasn’t always been the best about protecting himself. Burrow is surrounded by high-level talent on offense, including the league’s best wide receiver tandem in\u00a0Ja’Marr Chase\u00a0and\u00a0Tee Higgins. If the defensive additions bring that unit back to respectability and the offense continues to hum, this is a dangerous team. But it’s on Burrow to answer the bell for every game.”<\/p>\n

It’s a fair major question as Burrow enters this season having played in 35 of a possible 51 games over the past three regular seasons.<\/p>\n

He told Men’s Journal recently that he feels great on the health front.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling great. I\u2019m feeling as healthy as I\u2019ve ever felt, which is exciting for me. It\u2019s been a while since I felt that way,\u201d Burrow said<\/a>. \u201cA big part of that is how my body feels on a day-to-day basis. Waking up and going to the bathroom, walking downstairs. And when my body feels good, my mind feels good.”<\/p>\n

Burrow has been elite basically every time he suits up when healthy for\u00a0the Bengals<\/a>, as evidenced by his nasty 96 overall Pro Football Focus grade for his career (higher than names like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson).<\/p>\n

If he can stay healthy this fall, Cincinnati is primed to make some playoff noise for the first time since 2023.<\/p>\n

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For more on the Bengals,\u00a0subscribe to our YouTube Channel and be sure to check us out on your favorite audio platforms, including\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0iHeartRadio<\/a>, and\u00a0Amazon<\/a>. Make sure you\u00a0bookmark BengalsTalk.com\u00a0for the latest Bengals news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more! We’re a one-stop shop for all things Cincinnati Bengals! Join the\u00a065,000+ Bengals fans who subscribe to us on YouTube.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN’s Dan Graziano\u00a0broke down\u00a0the biggest question surrounding each NFL team’s starting quarterback this coming season, and Joe Burrow’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-725595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}