“I’m a Bengal”: Chad Johnson States He’s ‘Biased’ in Ranking Joe Burrow Third on His Elite QB List

After spending the 36th overall pick of the 2001 NFL Draft on an Oregon State product, the Cincinnati Bengals got plenty of miles and jersey sales from Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson. Having dedicated a decade of his life to the team, Johnson is the all-time franchise leader in receiving yards and touchdowns.

Given the impact that the city of Cincinnati and Johnson have had on each other, it should come as no surprise to see him show some favoritism when attempting to accurately rank the current face of the Bengals, Joe Burrow.

On the latest episode of the Night Cap podcast, Johnson revisited the tried and true topic of ranking the league’s top signal callers once again. This time willing to admit to his biases, the 11-year veteran proclaimed that he viewed Joe Burrow as the third best signal caller in the league.

“I saw some people were upset at that. I’m basing it off of the season that we just played… “Why would you put Joe third?” Because I’m a Bengal. I’m biased,” he said proudly.

Despite leading the league in passing attempts, completions, yards and touchdowns, Burrow’s 2024 regular season campaign yielded only 82 votes for the MVP award. Finishing fourth overall in the race, his efforts were instead rewarded with AP Comeback Player of the Year and Pro Bowl honors.

Still amazed by the 4,918 passing yards that Burrow produced this year, Johnson rightfully presumed him to be one of the best quarterbacks in football. Johnson was also clear about listing both Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts above Burrow. However, his Hall of Fame co-host in Shannon Sharpe, not so surprisingly, disagreed with his rankings.

In an attempt to highlight the discrepancy in skill, Sharpe asked Ocho to imagine a scenario where other prominent signal callers were given control of Philadelphia’s roster. Suggesting that the Eagles would only improve, Sharpe said –

“If I take Joe Burrow and put him with the Eagles… are they better or worse? …Lamar Jackson, give him the exact same team… Now, I take Jalen Hurts and I put him in any of those other guys’ system. What are you thinking?”

In admitting “Those guys are asked to do things that Jalen Hurts doesn’t have to do with the Eagles,” Johnson did not need much more to be convinced that Hurts was ranked too high on his personal list.

Considering that the show kicked off with Darius Slay, now a former teammate of Hurts, leaving the Philadelphia passer out of his own elite QB rankings, Johnson’s misstep in ranking Hurts over Burrow made for an ironic twist to the segment.

Immediately folding on his own argument, at least the former Bengal will be able to take pride in the fact that the national sentiment still values Joe Burrow’s skill set more than that of Jalen Hurts.

Regardless of where the two stand in your own quarterback rankings, the hot button topic continues to provide fans and pundits alike the ability to kill a bit of time throughout the offseason. However, it’s likely that the next time Ochocinco covers the topic, he’ll have a new set of rankings.