Bengals fans have been holding their breath about the future of Joe Burrow in Cincinnati, Ohio.
There’s been concerning signals the last couple of months. Telling press conferences brought a real fear of the end of the Burrow era in Cinci.
Fans obviously hope that Burrow sticks around long-term, believing he is the man to end their championship drought. American celebrity, Kentucky native, and die-hard Bengals fan is no different.
Nick Lachey Doesn’t See a Long-Term Future of Burrow with the Bengals
Lachey appeared on the Fitz and Whit podcast earlier this week to talk Bengals football. His words about Joe Burrow and his future with the Bengals were ones of concern.
“Unless something changes and changes in a big way, I don’t think it’s a strong chance [Burrow sticks around]. Because I think he’s the kind of guy who is the ultimate competitor, he wants to win. I think he would love to win there. I think he would love to finish what he started there.
We saw the cracks in the foundation a little bit this year, and he did a good job of kind of backpedaling out of it [negative press conferences]. But the guy wants to win, and if he doesn’t think it can happen there, then at some point, he’s going to get frustrated to the point of having to kind of throw down an ultimatum.”
Lachey dropped a diss-track on the Bengals earlier this year, and spoke about it on 700 WLW.
“I’m a long-abused Bengals fan. It’s been about forty-five years since I first started watching the Bengals, and I’ve been on the same roller coaster that everyone else in that city has.
I don’t know, it just felt like enough’s enough. We’ve been so beat down in the fan base…And I think people have started to lose hope, and even worse, I feel like eventually the players start to lose hope, and you get the Carson Palmer situation, where players just want out. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
It’s hard to imagine most Bengals fans don’t share the same sentiment as Lachey.
Cincinnati Legend Andrew Whitworth Calls for Team to Trade For Maxx Crosby
Whitworth doesn’t want his former team to screw around; he wants them go all-in. He explained his thought process on making a big move on a recent episode of the Fitz and Whit podcast.
“Defense would be a great place to start. If I’m sitting there going, ‘what do we got to do?’ We can’t miss. This is the most critical year in this era under Joe Burrow, in my opinion, of evaluation from that position on in the draft and free agency. ‘How do we add the defensive weapons that take us over?’”
He then keyed-in on Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby, which would be one of the biggest moves of the offseason in the entire NFL.
“Go get Maxx Crosby at all costs. Obviously that’d be a lot of capital trying to figure out how to get that worked out, but that would be the young guy tone setter, the example for your defense every single day.
Pay him the money, spend the draft pick the 10th pick, send it if you have to, put the example in the room.”
This would no-doubt be a win for the Bengals. It would probably cost some substantial draft capital, but that’s the price of a player like Crosby. Should things fall through all the way with Hendrickson, then Cinci will be forced to swing big.