Joe Burrow is starting his fourth NFL season this fall. Slowly but surely, the Cincinnati Bengals have to seek a contract extension with their franchise quarterback. However, as Burrow’s congenial partner and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase has now revealed, the franchise has less to fear in the negotiations than might have been assumed.
According to Chase, Joe Burrow will not go to extremes in negotiations with the Bengals. Burrow said he was willing to take some pay cuts to keep Cincinnati’s cap space under pressure.
“It means he wants to win,” the passport recipient told Enquirer Bengals Beat reporter Charlie Goldsmith. “He’s not a big guy when it comes to money. He knows he’s the best quarterback in the league. He doesn’t need the money to prove it. He wants to take care of the people around him and the team around him keep around.”
Perhaps Burrow looked for a famous role model for this attitude. NFL legend Tom Brady was also known to forego salary to keep the team around him as strong as possible. It certainly didn’t hurt the seven-time Super Bowl winner.
Joe Burrow’s steep path to NFL superstardom
Whether Burrow really is the best quarterback in the league, as Chase claims, is in the eye of the beholder. Without a doubt, however, the 26-year-old has had a stellar career in the NFL so far.
While he learned a lot from behind a brittle O-Line in his first year and had to end the season prematurely with a cruciate ligament rupture, he most recently led the Bengals to the AFC Championship Game twice in a row.
In 2021 the team even reached the Super Bowl, last season they lost to the eventual champion Kansas City Chiefs with 20:23.