The Bengals are on the clock, and there’s a widespread assumption that they’ll be more than a little interested in LSU quarterback Joe Burrow.
And they don’t mind acknowledging it.
“He definitely checks off a lot of boxes early on in the evaluation process,” quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt told Geoff Hobson of the team’s official website. “He obviously looks like a very intriguing guy.”
They don’t know at the moment whether he’ll show up for the Senior Bowl next week (in any capacity), but they’ve already done the prep work on him, with offensive coordinator Brian Callahan saying he’s already watched every snap of LSU’s offense.
Callahan described the Heisman winner as being “as advertised.”
“He’s got natural pocket feel. He feels it,” Callahan said. “It seems like he never takes his eyes off down the field. He extends the play really, really well. He’s a lot faster than you might assume when you see him running away from all those SEC guys. He’s got incredible up-field accuracy. The ball hardly ever hits the ground in a game, which is rare. He just naturally puts the ball in places where those guys can make plays.”
Burrow threw a ridiculous 60 touchdowns last year, against just six interceptions. The Bengals, as you may have noticed, did not have such great success (18 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions), but the concepts are familiar.
“We’ve got a lot of similarities with their pass game. A lot of NFL offenses do,” Callahan said of LSU. “He ran a lot of elements of what they did in New Orleans. Getting guys in space. Getting people in matchups. You see a lot of pro passing concepts in their offense and they did a really good job. But they are things that you see around the league. It’s all things that fit very well with what we do and a lot of people do.”
And unlike the rest of the league, the Bengals have first crack at him.