Joe continues where he left off

Joe Burrow on fire while Tua Tagovailoa struggles early in training camp

It is obviously too early to determine either players’ career, but Burrow has taken an early lead against Tua Tagovailoa.

The Bengals had a tough choice between LSU’s Joe Burrow and Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa. That decision was made easier when Cincinnati was given the out of Tagovailoa suffering an injury during the college season.

It is still safe to say that these two quarterbacks will constantly be compared throughout their careers. Burrow went first overall and Tagovailoa fell to the fifth pick of the first round.

With that said, Burrow has looked like the more NFL ready player up to this point, and that idea was strengthened on Friday. First, Bengals fans watched as Burrow dominated the team’s scrimmage by completing his first eight passes, overcoming multiple false starts, and tossing three touchdowns without A.J. Green, John Ross or Tee Higgins.

This is as good as you can get for this point in training camp, and especially since we won’t have any preseason games this year. Burrow has just looked like the quarterback he was advertised to be. He is getting the best out of everyone on offense.

Meanwhile in Miami, the Dolphins have been giving Ryan Fitzpatrick most of the first team snaps and plan on starting the veteran at the beginning of the season. On Friday, Fitzpatrick was given an undisclosed personal day, which allowed Tagovailoa to display where his game was currently at. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go so well, according to Hal Habib of Palm Beach Post.

Obviously, it is too soon to declare anything about either player after a few weeks of practice. It is still a nice start for Burrow, and it certainly feels better to have your franchise savior performing so well already and not struggling to beat out a well-traveled veteran quarterback.

Tagovailoa isn’t the only rookie quarterback not expected to start the season, though. It is already been said that the Chargers will be starting Tyrod Taylor over Justin Herbert, who went one pick after Tagovailoa. This is more to show that Burrow seems to just be that far ahead of the curve in such a strange offseason. Also maybe the Bengals were right to not trade the pick, Just maybe.

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While Tua not so much


Tagovailoa appeared to be overly hyped for the occasion, consistently overshooting receivers. When he was able to make connections, often it was because receivers such as Chester Rogers and Preston Williams were using all of their 6-foot-plus frames to make adjustments and haul in passes. He also tended to lead receivers out of bounds rather than give them space to walk the tightrope.

To say he needed to settle down would be an understatement. Red flag? Tagovailoa is, after all, coming from Alabama. The SEC. Has been under pressure for years. That’s all true, but this is the NFL and this is a huge step from college to the pros. If Dan Marino couldn’t get thrown into this kind of cauldron and emerge with a starting job — and no, he did not open the 1983 season as QB1 — it’s unrealistic to expect Tagovailoa to beat out 16-year veteran Fitzpatrick. Especially not on the strength of a truncated training camp.

I’ll be watching the Bengals this year.

Tua was always going to be a work in progress. Only gumps believed he was gonna come back 100% from such significant injury in less than a year. Comparing him to Burrow right now is somewhat premature.

WTF are you talking about? TUA was the #1 pick in the draft if he didn't require surgery. They said it over 100 times during the draft. Burrow was the healthy/safe pick.

Really dude? “Edit” your post all day - it’s still Gumpy bullshit smh

Stupid this wasn’t about draft status but performance through training camp. Joe has been head and shoulders above Tua by all accounts. It take more than the ability to throw a pretty pass and Joe is showing much more than Tua.

And TUA was injured & required surgeries, so all your training camp crapolla, is invalid. That's not a shot at Burrow either.

I know you're aching to learn, Winston, so,.. Herbert is getting rave reviews with the Chargers, a good situation for him there,.. he might be starting by season's end,.. same, or even more likely, Mariota will end up starting for the Raiders,.. quack quack

Revisionist history.