Joe Burrow seems OK with the Bengals after all

INDIANAPOLIS — Joe Burrow didn’t come right out and say it, but Bengals fans should be feeling much better about the chances that the LSU star quarterback ends up in Cincinnati.

Burrow has been somewhat vague about his comments regarding his willingness to play for the Bengals, who have the first overall pick. And though there might still be some wiggle room about whether he will indeed not put up a fight if Cincinnati uses the top choice on him, it sure sounds as if Burrow is ready to take over for the league’s worst franchise.

We’ll start here:

Does Burrow, who is coming off a national championship and Heisman Trophy season, want to go No. 1?

“Of course, I want to be the first pick,” he said Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “That’s every kid’s dream. I’ve worked really, really hard for this opportunity, and I’m blessed to be in this position. A lot of people helped me get here, and I’m just really excited to be in this position.”

OK, there’s that.

Now, if that first pick is used by the Bengals?

“I think with any quarterback, fit is really important, but you don’t have a lot of say in that in the draft,” Burrow said. “Whoever picks you picks you, and you gotta go play. I’m going to try to make whoever picks me work. I think my skill set is really diverse and can fit in a lot of different schemes. I’m going to try to be the best player I can be for whoever drafts me.”

So why all the fuss about Burrow perhaps not wanting to be drafted by the team that plays just two hours from where he lives in The Plains, Ohio? Burrow explains.

“The only thing I’ve ever said is I didn’t want to be presumptuous about the pick,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been noncommittal, because I don’t know what’s going to happen. (The Bengals) might not pick me. They might fall in love with someone else. You (reporters) took that narrative (of Burrow having misgivings about the Bengals) and ran with it, but there hasn’t been anything like that from my end.”

And where does that leave Burrow? Most likely, it leaves him as the No. 1 overall pick of the Bengals. Barring a trade by a team willing to move up for Burrow — the Chargers and Dolphins are in the market for a quarterback, and perhaps the Lions, too — the Bengals can solidify their quarterback position with the consensus No. 1 passer in this year’s draft.

“I just think he checks all the boxes,” said former Bengals guard Dave Lapham, the Bengals’ longtime radio analyst who was on hand for Burrow’s media session Tuesday.

Should Bengals fans feel relieved that Burrow seems comfortable with going No. 1 to Cincinnati?

“I think so,” Lapham said. “I think coming from the football family that he comes from, I don’t see him sitting out or trying to cause any big waves. I think he’s a football player, and I think he got that message across.”

The Bengals have been a mostly miserable franchise since their one and only Super Bowl appearance after the 1988 season, when Boomer Esiason was the league’s MVP. Burrow might be the next best hope, although that’s what the Bengals thought when they took Carson Palmer with the first overall pick in 2003. That didn’t work out too well, now did it?

“What better chapter to his story than to win a national championship at LSU and then turn the Bengals around?” Lapham said. “That’s a pretty good follow-up.”

Burrow certainly has the personality and the pizzazz to take on the herculean task of turning around a moribund franchise.

“He takes over a room without trying to take over a room,” Lapham said. “He’s the kind of guy you can gravitate around.”

Burrow’s self-deprecating sense of humor only enhances his personality. Take his ability to laugh at himself over some NFL observers believing his hand size — nine inches, which is somewhat small by NFL standards — is a potential impediment.

“Considering retirement after I was informed the football will be slipping out of my tiny hands,” Burrow tweeted on Monday. “Please keep me in your thoughts.”

Well played, sir.

“I think it’s a non-factor,” he said. “I don’t get paid to talk about measurements and analyze measurements,” he said. “I get paid to play football, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Looks like he’ll be getting paid to play in Cincinnati.

By Bob Glauber

Special to NewsdayBobGlauber

Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”