Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is leading the NFL in both passing yards and passing touchdowns, and if he has a big game against the Steelers on Saturday, he could join a very exclusive club in league history.
Burrow has 4,641 passing yards and 42 passing touchdowns, which means with 359 yards and three touchdowns against the Steelers, he’d finish the season with 5,000 yards and 45 touchdowns. That has only happened four other times before: Dan Marino in 1984, Drew Brees in 2011, Peyton Manning in 2013 and Patrick Mahomes in 2018.
It’s worth noting that Burrow would be reaching the 5,000-yard, 45-touchdown milestone in his 17th game of the season, and the other four quarterbacks did it in 16 games. And Burrow has also benefited from the NFL’s evolving passing environment, which makes life easier than it was for quarterbacks of the past, especially Marino, whose 1984 season is one of the great statistical outliers in the history of sports.
Burrow also has three or more touchdown passes in eight straight games, and if he does it again he’ll join Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks in NFL history who have thrown at least three touchdown passes in nine games in a row.
Despite Burrow’s MVP numbers, the Bengals need to beat the Steelers on Saturday, and then get some help on Sunday, to make the playoffs.
Cornerback Donte Jackson was added to the Steelers injury report on Wednesday.
Jackson was limited in the team’s second practice ahead of Saturday’s game against the Bengals. A back injury is listed as the reason for his addition to the report.
jackson has 38 tackles, five interceptions, and a fumble recovery in 15 games this season.
Running back Jaylen Warren (ribs) and quarterback Russell Wilson (rest) were bumped up from limited to full participation. Quarterback Justin Fields (abdomen), cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (knee), wide receiver Roman Wilson (hamstring) and wide receiver Ben Skowronek (hip) were full participants for the second straight day.
The Associated Press doesn’t want the 50 awards voters to vote for Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold as comeback player of the year. That hasn’t stopped sports books from taking bets on Darnold — or bettors from making Darnold one of the favorites to win it.
At DraftKings, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is the current favorite, at -200. Darnold’s odds are +175. There’s a steep drop to the next player: Chargers running back J.K. Dobbins, at +2000.
As the Associated Press explained to voters in October, as Darnold was starting to get comeback player buzz, “The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year Award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.” A tweet from Rob Maaddi of the AP made it clear that, under this guidance, Darnold isn’t eligible.
The phrase “other circumstances” creates enough wiggle room to vote for Darnold, who has overcome the circumstances of being ruined by a bad franchise that drafted him in 2018 and traded to another bad franchise before being relegated to backup status because of it before landing in Minnesota as a 14-win starter. When we asked the AP four specific questions in October — (1) will votes for Sam Darnold be rejected?; (2) will any votes that don’t mesh with the new guidelines be rejected?; (3) who will decide the players that are and aren’t within the new guidelines?; and (4) when will those decisions be made? — we received this answer: “We have given voters the criteria and will follow up regularly to make sure the guidelines are clear. We expect voters will follow the criteria, and the award recipient will meet the criteria.”
I’ll make my decision on comeback player of the year after Week 18. Chances are both Burrow and Darnold will be on my ballot. Will Darnold be rejected? It’s still not completely clear.
When I tried to put Commanders running back Brian Robinson on the comeback player ballot two years ago (he’d been shot during training camp), it was rejected because rookies aren’t eligible for the award. We’ll see whether votes for Darnold are rejected.
If they are, there might be plenty of pissed-off gamblers.
UPDATE 1:52 p.m. ET: The AP has confirmed that votes for Darnold will not be rejected, even if they don’t meet the revised criteria.
The Steelers’ three-game losing streak has cost them control of their own fate in the AFC North and it’s left them with work to do in Week 18 regardless of what happens elsewhere in the division.
If the Ravens beat the Browns on Saturday afternoon, the Steelers won’t have a chance of winning the division in their game against the Bengals. Head coach Mike Tomlin said earlier this week that the team’s need to improve their performance will take precedence over resting ahead of the playoffs and defensive lineman Cam Heyward said he’s on the same page when it comes to keeping the focus internal.
“For me, and I think for a lot of guys in here, hopefully the whole team, it’s about just playing good ball,” Heyward said, via the team’s website. “We’ve got to get back on good footing, play with good technique. We control what we can control. I think going forward, ball just needs to be played the right way. It doesn’t matter what happens outside of our stadium. We understand we’re in the playoffs. So just focus on what we’ve got to focus on.”
If the Ravens and Steelers win, the Steelers would open the playoffs in Houston. A loss to the Bengals and a Chargers win on Sunday would set up a third meeting with the Ravens, so there would be implications for the Steelers beyond getting back on track in any scenario.
The Bengals don’t have full control of whether they make the playoffs or not heading into Week 18, but they will have more say in making sure one of their players finishes off a stellar season with some personal milestones.
Wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase leads the league in catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns going into their matchup with the Steelers. On Tuesday, quarterback Joe Burrow said the team will assure he remains there.
“Make sure he gets it,” Burrow said, via the team’s website “I think a couple of [categories] are pretty out of reach for everybody else. I think he’s got a seven- or eight-catch lead. . . . “He works for it. He grinds for it. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime-type player and our careers will forever be tied together from college into the pro landscape. That’s just fun to be a part of.”
Burrow is right about where things stand. Chase has four more touchdowns than Terry McLaurin and Amon-Ra St. Brown and he has eight more catches than St. Brown. He’s 133 yards up on Justin Jefferson, so even a modest day should be enough to give him the triple crown.
