When the NFL draft opens April 23, former LSU quarterback and 2019 Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow will be the first pick, headed to Cincinnati to rejuvenate a dismal Bengals team. He’s earned this position — no one throws 60 touchdowns to six interceptions without being a very talented player.
However, it’s fair to wonder how high Burrow’s NFL ceiling is.
Burrow was undoubtedly the engine for LSU’s offense, but he played in near perfect conditions. He had the best receiver in college football in Biletnikoff Award winner Ja’Marr Chase, another top-50 pick at receiver with Justin Jefferson, the best offensive line in the country, and the best offensive staff in the country, including current Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Joe Brady. Those advantages don’t exist in the NFL, and they certainly don’t exist with the current makeup of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Burrow also had extremely good splits on third down last year, which can be an unstable stat to use when projecting future performance. According to ESPN, 12 of Burrow’s 60 touchdown passes came on third down, even though he threw just 90 third-down passes all season. 13.3% of his third down throws were touchdowns! On third down with 11 yards to go or more, Burrow completed 13 of his 18 pass attempts (12.3 yards per attempt) for 222 yards and two touchdowns.
That’s utterly amazing — and unlikely to continue in the NFL.
In 2018, Burrow completed 50 of his 96 third-down attempts for 550 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions. On third down and 11 yards to go or more, Burrow completed just 10 of his 23 attempts for 102 yards for no touchdowns and one interception. It’s impossible to predict how he’ll perform in these areas in the NFL, but it might be a bit of a red flag that he saw such a massive increase in performance in a situation that’s hard to sustain year-to-year.
Burrow’s projection as an NFL quarterback needs to be done without getting overwhelmed by the production. There aren’t many quarterbacks in the history of college football capable of putting performances like this together, but that performance needs to be contextualized.
Burrow’s performance under pressure, another volatile statistic, was also otherworldly this past season. According to Pro Football Focus, Burrow completed 81 of his 122 attempts under pressure for 17 touchdowns, one interception and 11.4 yards per attempt. His deep passing numbers were straight out of a video game too, with 26 touchdowns coming on 83 deep pass attempts.
What makes Burrow a bit of an enigma is knowing that it’s hard to replicate his performance on third down, under pressure and deep passes, but also being blown away by the eye test. Burrow makes these situations look much easier to thrive in than they are because he was deadly accurate to every single level of the field. He completed 76.3% of his passes last season, which is a near-impossible feat to accomplish.
What will Joe Burrow be in the NFL? That’s the big question. Is he a transformative, transcendent talent, or is he going to be like Baker Mayfield who has largely struggled outside of an eight-game stretch during his rookie year? His performance from the 2019 season, paired with Tua Tagovailoa’s injury, makes him the no-brainer selection for the Bengals, but Burrow’s NFL projection might not be as clean as his Heisman-winning campaign suggests.
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