Bring Joe Burrow to New York. He can fix either Jets or Giants
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow throws a touchdown pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Cincinnati. Credit: AP/Jeff Dean
Forget about Fernando Mendoza or Dante Moore. Even the promising potential of Jaxson Dart can be pushed aside.
If the Jets and Giants are both truly focused on abruptly turning around their sad, sickly fortunes of late then there is really just one guy for the job, the quarterback who was out there throwing for 305 yards and a pair of touchdowns on Sunday while New York’s two teams were busy futzing around with the Raiders and Patriots.
Joe Burrow needs to be in New York next season. Both teams should spend the next few months pouring whatever assets and powers or persuasion they have into getting that done.
He obviously cannot play for the Giants and the Jets… although at this point with their combined six wins between them this season even that timeshare situation might give them each better results than what we are seeing. Maybe he can just be MetLife’s quarterback rather than play for a specific team and just handle the home games for each of them. But barring such a contractual exemption from the commissioner, only one team will be able to land the player who is the most tantalizing fruit on this coming offseason’s tree.
Given Burrow’s comments over the past month which expressed frustration with his time in Cincinnati, the quarterback could probably use a change of address. He did say he expects to play for the Bengals in 2026, but these things can change. Besides, he also spoke about the potential of finishing his career elsewhere.
Maybe elsewhere can be here.
Imagine him throwing deep passes to Malik Nabers while chatting about their shared LSU heritage. Think about him tossing touchdowns to Garrett Wilson.
Those aren’t just fan visualization exercises. They are things the two front offices need to be strongly considering.
The Jets have much more of a need for him and much more draft capital to get something done. There was a report over the weekend that the Bengals would probably need a “Ricky Williams-type” level of compensation to move Burrow, a reference to the monster 1999 deal that the New Orleans made with Washington to draft the running back. That haul included the Saints’ entire draft allotment that year plus a future first- and third-rounder. With the picks that the Jets banked from their trades of Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner this season they are one of the few teams in the league that could muster such a remittance.
Stop, you’ll say. The Jets tried this three years ago when they brought in Aaron Rodgers and attempted to create an instant contender. Well, yes and no. Rodgers was 39 at the time so there is about a decade’s difference between him and Burrow. He also brought a ton of other baggage – not to mention a cadre of hangers-on that the Jets have only now been able to fully clear out – that became a distraction. Oh, and there is this: Had Rodgers not torn his Achilles four plays into that first season with the Jets, the plan might actually have worked!
“This is a playmakers’ league,” Aaron Glenn said on Monday regarding what the Patriots had just done to rip through his Jets.
Burrow would give the Jets a legitimate one that would put them on equal footing with the Bills and Patriots immediately rather than drafting a quarterback and hoping to get there in a few years. Plus, unlike Rodgers, Burrow can be part of a long-term vision. If it works out well, he could stick around for the next decade.
As for the Giants, if the reports that they ae open to evaluating quarterback options this offseason are true and not just smokescreens to drive up the price of whatever high draft pick they eventually get, then nothing – not even Dart – should stand between them and Burrow. They tried this tactic last offseason when they attempted to pry Matthew Stafford away from the Rams and they should definitely pursue it again this time with Burrow. They don’t have the bank of picks that the Jets can offer, but they do have Dart to throw in on any deal and he’s as good as a first-rounder. Maybe even better since he has already shown that he can perform in the league unlike the gamble made each time a team selects a rookie.
Interim head coach Mike Kafka was asked on Monday if he thinks Dart is a franchise quarterback. “I have no doubt about that,” he said, adding that he would love to continue to work with the young player.
Great. Maybe Kafka and Dart can both land in Cincy if the Bengals drop Zak Taylor as their head coach too after three straight years without a playoff appearance.
The Giants can’t let their fears over what Dart may become for someone else get in the way of what Burrow is right now: A top five quarterback. The Rams didn’t do that when they sent Jared Goff to Detroit in exchange for Stafford, who has already won them a Super Bowl and could bring home an MVP this season. In fact the two leading candidates for MVP this year are the two quarterbacks the Giants were in pursuit of the past two offseasons but came up short in landing: Drake Maye, who was drafted third overall in 2024 by the Patriots, and Stafford, who wound up signing an extension with the Rams in early 2025. The Giants can’t afford to be runners up in the quarterback arms race a third offseason in a row.
Dart is a promising player and a budding leader for the team, but he also is an asset and should be seen as such. Including him in a package for Burrow wouldn’t be giving up on him, it would be appreciating his value and using it to make the Giants better.
The chances of either dream scenario for the Giants or Jets happening are admittedly slim and Burrow does have a no-trade clause in his contract so the final say might be up to him and not the teams. He may just want to stay put.
But if there is even a sliver of a chance for them to land him, they owe it to themselves and their fans to do all they can to make it happen.
Burrow will make whichever team he plays for in 2026 a contender. That’s more than can be said about nearly every other option either of New York’s two sorry teams has regarding their quarterback statuses this offseason.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
