Joe Burrow is worth $275m so why is NFL’s best QB so miserable being a Bengal?

Joe Burrow should have won the NFL MVP last year.

One season later, the former No. 1 overall draft pick with a $275 million contract is questioning his place on planet Earth and searching for personal joy two weeks away from Christmas.

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Could Burrow be on verge of retiring?

“It’s just reflection,” Burrow told reporters on Wednesday.

“Reflection on a lot of things that I’ve done and been through in my career, I think. I’ve been through more than most, and it’s certainly not easy on the brain or the body, so I’m just trying to have fun doing it again.”

Being a Cincinnati Bengals fan is almost as sad as being a Cleveland Browns fan.

But with the 29-year-old Burrow suddenly sounding like Andrew Luck in his final days with the Indianapolis Colts, there’s clearly something more going on than just playing for a 4-9 team that has spent 2025 staring at another lost season.

This was Luck in 2019 when the former No. 1 pick, four-time Pro Bowler and 2018 NFL Comeback Player of the Year walked away from the NFL forever.

“I’ve been stuck in this process,” Luck said. “I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. It’s taken the joy out of this game … the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football.

“This is not an easy decision. It’s the hardest decision of my life. But it is the right decision for me.”

Bengals’ blues seem to be wearing on QB

This was Burrow, a two-time Comeback Player of the Year winner, unexpectedly opening up on his birthday.

“If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it,” Burrow said.

“I’ve been through a lot. And if it’s not fun, what am I doing it for?”

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17. Baltimore Ravens (6-7)

A more efficient Lamar Jackson would have beaten Aaron Rodgers on Sunday.

The good news for the Ravens is they can still rise from 6-7.

The bad news is that Baltimore is 6-7 and barely hanging on as a contender.

To reach .500 again, Jackson must beat Joe Burrow and the Bengals on Sunday in Cincinnati.

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Part of this is definitely on the Bengals, who are often best known as the ‘Bungles’ by serious NFL fans.

Cincinnati has been a pro franchise for 58 years but the Bengals have never won the Super Bowl.

Cincy had also been notorious in recent years for failing to pay its top players and giving away some of its best talent.

When the Bengals did finally step up to give Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Trey Hendrickson and Burrow a combined $580m, the team watched Burrow fail to make it through Week 1 and then miss more than half of the season with a super-frustrating turf toe injury.

There’s bad luck, then there’s Bungles’ luck.

Cincy also started 1-4 last year, rose to 9-8 while Burrow passed for almost 5,000 yards, and still failed to make the playoffs.

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Money isn’t buying happiness for Burrow

No wonder the face of the Bengals sounds like this in Week 15.

“There’s just a lot of things going on right now,” Burrow said. “A lot of things going on.”

Mental health is serious business, so this isn’t making fun of anything that Burrow is internally dealing with.

But it’s painfully clear that a young man still staring at decades on Earth — with $177m in career earnings and enough spare cash to buy a real Batmobile while wearing high fashion and learning to play the piano — could use a little perspective in 2025.

Burrow hails from small-town Ohio and he was praised during the 2020 NFL Draft — when the world was distancing and masking up during the coronavirus pandemic — for shining a light on those in need.

“Coming from southeast Ohio it’s a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average,” Burrow said in 2020.

“There’s so many people there that don’t have a lot and I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too.”

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Searching for meaning in holiday season

Burrow is contractually tied to the Bengals through 2029, but it’s obvious that weekly and annual football frustration are darkening his love of the game.

Maybe the best thing for the NCAA national champion from LSU is to demand an offseason trade, realizing that a $275m contract with Cincinnati doesn’t guarantee personal happiness in the NFL.

Maybe Burrow just needs to remember small-town Ohio and the hundreds of millions of human beings across the globe who would give anything to live his life for one day.

He should enjoy the wonder of small things — sunshine, nature, animals, long walks, hot coffee on a cold day — and keep the big things in perspective.

It could be 1,000 times worse — he’s not fighting in a war, dealing with daily poverty or wondering which part of the street he will again have to sleep on at night.

But when the most talented passer in the NFL sounds this lost in Cincy, taking a long break from daily football life could go a long way in preserving a career that should end up in the Hall of Fame.

Burrow has a gift.

It would be a shame if he gave it away, just to get away from being the Bengals’ QB.

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