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Joe Burrow will be a Cincinnati Bengal next week after his name is the first called during what will be a virtual 2020 NFL Draft. Burrow is a proven winner, in fact he’s never really lost at all during his athletic career, but he’s going to a Cincinnati franchise that has become a losing organization over the last four seasons.
The Bengals last won a playoff game in 1990, six years before Burrow was even born. With that in mind, there have been rumors and concerns suggesting that the former LSU standout may not want to end up a Bengal.
Mel Kiper Jr. doesn’t have time for those rumors nor the Cincinnati slander going around, however, he made that very clear during a fiery rant on ‘Get Up’ on Wednesday morning.
“I’m disgusted by it, Greeny, it makes me sick. I’ve been screaming about this for months. I hear this garbage everybody wants to spew about the Bengals, it’s ‘the horrible place to go, it’s awful. You’ve got no chance for a quarterback to have success.’
What are you, dreaming? You want to just throw out inaccurate information? That’s fine, But it makes me sick. ’81 and ’88 may be too long ago, but they won in ’81 with Ken Anderson, and ’88 with Boomer Esiason. If that’s too far, removed, fine. Let’s fast-forward to 2011 to 2015. That’s not 100 years ago, guys. They had five straight winning seasons, five straight playoff appearances. Should have beat Pittsburgh, it was a penalty late that cost them that opportunity. They had an 11- and 12-win season mixed in during those five straight years of getting to the playoffs. With Carson Palmer, he got hurt in a playoff game, or they may have won that game. Andy Dalton had success.
So this notion that Joe Burrow’s going to a place that’s never won, never had success, never had a quarterback do anything is utterly ridiculous.”
The Bengals are coming off of a 2-14 season and their last winning season came back in 2015 when they went 12-4 but fell to the Steelers in the Wild Card round of the AFC playoffs.