Joe Burrow: Bengals in 'Great Spot' Ahead of 2026 NFL Season With 'Energies Elevated'

Joe Burrow held his OTA press conference on Wednesday afternoon and started it with major excitement about all the moves the Bengals made this offseason.

Cincinnati is basically spending right to the salary cap in Burrow's seventh NFL season. They've added a ton of veterans on defense, including Dexter Lawrence, and fully solidified the offense by inking new deals with Orlando Brown Jr. and Dalton Risner.

He's pleased with how the higher-ups drove the bus in the past few months to put together their "best roster" since Burrow's been in the NFL.

"We have a lot of depth now in the defensive line, that's exciting, not just for me, but for those guys, so they don't have to play as many snaps, you can have more of a rotation, so we have everything we need in that locker room. We just gotta go and make it happen," Burrow said about the team build.

Burrow was "fired up" when he heard the trade news surrounding Lawrence, and now he and the whole team feel the right kind of pressure to perform. He has been held out of the playoffs for three consecutive seasons due to poor defenses, injury issues, or sometimes both.

Heightened Urgency

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) celebrates after the game-winning touchdown pass to Tee Higgins in overtime of the NFL Week 17 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Denver Broncos at Paycor Stadium in downtown Cincinnati on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. The Bengals took a 30-24 win in overtime to remain in the post season chase. | Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

"Yeah, I would say that's fair to say," Burrow said about the sense of urgency rising from these moves. "The front office has taken a lot of heat from fans, the public, the media, and we put all that behind us. They went and made it happen with free agency. I thought the draft, obviously, we'll find out. We don't know a ton about these rookies yet, but it seems like they brought the right kind of guys in, and then obviously with Dexter making a trade like that, that doesn't happen a ton in the NFL, so that's exciting to see."

Burrow was not as involved in offseason plans when it came to a formal meeting after the season on his thoughts. The timing just didn't work out for him to meet in person with the front office, but they kept him in the loop over the phone.

A big-spending loop, to say the least. According to Over The Cap, Cincinnati has just $7.1 million in salary cap space (30th in the NFL), and Spotrac has them ranked 11th in cash spending after being 22nd in 2025.

"We had a lot of communication during free agency, so there's no secret that the last several years didn't go the way we wanted to, and there's a lot of blame to go around for that, myself included," Burrow said about those front office talks. "So we're in a great spot this year. We brought in, like I said, great people and great players, and you can feel the vibes of the locker room, the energies elevated right now we have some veteran guys that can come in and show the young guys on defense what it takes, what it means to be great every day, and so that's like I said, exciting to be a part of."

Cincinnati has the third-easiest schedule in the NFL this fall by both 2025 opponent win rate and projected betting win totals.

The time is now to take advantage of a third-place schedule and push for the AFC's No. 1 seed in January.

"No matter who we have in the locker room, we're gonna try to go out and make it work," Burrow said about the ultimate goal. "We got guys that work really hard to put themselves in position to perform well, perform to our standard. We haven't necessarily done that for a couple of years, so we brought some guys in who've been there and done that, and have had their own standard of play, and are going to live up to that. So now we just have to come together as a unit and do it as a collective."

Burrow's Boys continue their offseason work together this week and beyond.

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