Their preseason opener against the reigning Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles – albeit a depleted one – fired off some warning shots to the rest of the NFL.

Burrow completed 90 percent of his passes in his first preseason game of 2025
Although the Bengals would lose 34-27, Joe Burrow put in an almost flawless performance, in a first meaningful pre-season appearance since his rookie year.

The 2020 first overall pick completed nine of his 10 pass attempts, and throwing for 123 yards and two touchdown passes – three if you include a Ja’Marr Chase TD that was called back – before coming out the game.

Whilst his performance was impressive, with him registering a 157.1 quarterback rating, and a career-high 15 preseason snaps, the 28-year-old underlined the standards he keeps.

“Today was average,” Burrow said of his performance, just days after telling the media he expects to be near perfect this season.

“But overall, I’m happy with where I’m at. Next week I’d like to be a little better.”

When questioned about why he didn’t seem overly impressed with how he performed individually, Burrow did clarify, and expressed how he wished the ball came spinning out of his hands a little better.

“I wouldn’t say I didn’t like anything,” Burrow said. “I think for myself I could have been better. I missed the first throw. I put all the other ones where I wanted to put them.

“I would’ve liked to have spun it a little better consistently today. But we had scored two touchdowns, so go learn from a couple reps and get better.”

Burrow’s highlight play of the night came when he threw a short pass to Ja’Marr Chase – one of the NFL’s highest paid non-quarterbacks – for a 36 yard touchdown.

“Yeah, it was a good rep,” Burrow said of the play to his number one wide receiver target.

“Unbelievable play by him. Obviously he makes that play consistently, so just try to get that guy the ball.”

Joe Burrow. Ja’Marr Chase. Easy Bengals TD.

The Bengals offensive line has been a particular area of weakness for the team for a number of seasons, with Burrow being sacked 48 times in 2024, the fifth-most in the NFL.

However, the franchise quarterback made the admission that hesaw some early signs of improvement.

“I felt really comfortable back there. I thought the pockets were great. Guys just have to keep getting better.”

After exiting the game, Burrow criticised his team for the plethora of errors they made throughout the contest.

“We got to be better,” Burrow told the media after the loss.

“Too many procedural penalties, too many errors. Things like that are going to happen, but I think it just wasn’t clean enough across the board.”

Burrow had some stern words for both himself, and his team’s performance

Ja’Marr Chase made his 36-yard touchdown look easy
During Thursday’s contest, penalties proved costly, with cornerback DJ Ivey committing an offside penalty that negated an Eagles missed field goal – points they would go onto claim later in the drive.

Then, there was defensive tackle McKinnley Jackson’s unnecessary roughness call which eventually led to an Eagles touchdown.

“We just can’t shoot ourselves in the foot like that,” Burrow added when talking about the team’s avoidable mistakes.

“We did enough good things to win the game, but you can’t turn the ball over, you can’t have penalties in critical situations, and you can’t miss tackles. That’s how you lose games in this league.”

The Bengals had a disastrous season by their standards in 2025, where seven of their eight regular-season losses were by one possession, with the only exception being against the Eagles, where they lost by 20 points.

This is something still stuck in the memory of head coach Zac Taylor.
Joe Burrow at center of brutal Cincinnati Bengals training camp involving thrown punches and four fights
“Those are all things that as a team, we can’t tolerate,” Taylor said after the game. “We’ve got to play better team football than that.Having missed the playoffs for the second straight season, the Bengals giving Burrow such extensive reps is a clear indication that they want to get off to a hot start to begin the 2025 campaign.

This comes after having just one combined win in Weeks 1 and 2 dating back to Taylor’s first season as head coach in 2019.

Cincinnati’s second preseason encounter comes on the road against the Washington Commanders, where the Bengals will be looking to further tighten up on both sides of the ball as the start of the regular season edges ever closer.