Everything that Joe Burrow did vs. the Broncos that makes him an MVP-caliber QB

Back in November, when the Bengals traded for Khalil Herbert during a short week, Zac Taylor was asked about Herbert’s chances of making his Bengals’ debut with just one practice under his belt.

Taylor said that Herbert would be available against the Ravens. He joked that if Herbert didn’t know the play, then Joe Burrow could just step to the side and tell Herbert exactly what to do.

At least it seemed like a joke.

In overtime on Saturday in the Bengals’ 30-24 win over the Broncos, the Bengals faced 1st and 10 from the Broncos’ 47-yard line in what ended up being the game-winning drive.

At the line of scrimmage, Burrow called an audible by walking up to the offensive line and calling out a keyword. Everyone nodded along, except for Herbert.

How was Herbert supposed to know the audible call for a speed option? The Bengals, who run a Manning-style shotgun offense, are the last team in the NFL that you’d expect to call a speed option. Taylor has spoken at length about why the quarterback run game will never be a part of the offense.

But apparently, on some obscure, dusty page of the playbook, there’s an audible to a speed option. Very understandably so, Herbert hadn’t gotten there yet.

Burrow knew this. He spent a few seconds with Herbert before the snap. Their helmets touched as Burrow had a short conversation with him

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There’s no way that he wasn’t telling Herbert exactly what he was supposed to do.

Herbert gained 13 yards on the play, which resulted in the longest rush of the day by a Bengals’ running back.

This is quarterbacking at the highest level. Diagnosing the defense, audibling to the perfect play (even if it’s something you never do) and getting everyone on the same page.

Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have cases as quarterbacks who are better than Burrow at manufacturing explosive plays. But no one in the NFL is better at the art of quarterbacking than Burrow.

Burrow’s incredible performance was full of these moments. He was in full control as he faced one of the best defenses in the NFL.

Here are some of my favorites.

12-yard throw to Mike Gesicki in the first quarter.

Last week, Taylor called Burrow the best quarterback in the NFL at using cadence to his advantage. Taylor was referring to two plays where Burrow got the Browns to jump offsides, but the cadence can also make an impact in less obvious ways on other plays.

On this play, Burrow’s cadence got linebacker Cody Barton to trigger and start blitzing. Because of this, Burrow knew that the Broncos were going to blitz up the A-gap. That meant one less defender playing zone coverage over the middle, and more open space for Mike Gesicki’s slant over the middle.

One step from a linebacker told Burrow that Gesicki would be open

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Burrow still had to fit his throw into a very narrow window. He led Gesicki several yards over the middle of the field into an open window, and Gesicki ran right into the catch. The accuracy, anticipation and timing got the Bengals a first down.

3rd and 7 first down completion to Tee Higgins in the second quarter

Back in Week 2, Chiefs cornerback Chamarri Conner caught the Bengals off guard with a blitz out of the slot on a third down. It resulted in a sack and one of the biggest plays of the game.

On Saturday, the Broncos ran that same play with slot corner Ja’Quan McMillan. It should have resulted in another sack and he screamed unblocked through the Bengals’ pass protection.

This time, Burrow somehow found a way to get an accurate throw off through a massive hit. Because of the pressure, he had to get rid of the ball 7 yards before Higgins broke off his route. The throw got there, and the hit barely impacted its flight.

Opposing coaches often say that you don’t realize Burrow’s strength until you face him. This was a perfect example.

3rd and two first down completion to Chase Brown in the second quarter

Chase Brown was wide open on an out route out of the slot. He was open because of Burrow’s ability to use his eyes.

Burrow started down Barton, the middle linebacker, and froze him on the hash marks as Brown cut toward the sideline. Burrow also purposely under threw Brown and led him back toward the middle of the field with the throw to set up Brown for a yards after the catch opportunity.

If Burrow’s throw were further toward the sideline, corner Riley Moss would have had time to make a play. Burrow’s ball placement prevented that from happening.

17-yard throw to Andrei Iosivas in the second quarter

Brown is one of the best running backs in the NFL on screen passes. On a day where the run game wasn’t working, a screen was a good way to get him the ball.

The problem was that when Taylor called this play, the Broncos were in a defensive call that sold out to stop the screen.

So as Alex Cappa and Drew Sample pulled wide to the left to be Brown’s lead blockers, Burrow adjusted on the fly. He saw Iosivas in a one-on-one matchup and threw a strike for a big gain.

Burrow’s ability to process and have a feel for what all 22 players on the field are doing at any given moment is his biggest superpower. Most quarterbacks would have had to spike the ball when the defense snuffed out the screen, but Burrow’s thought process immediately turned his attention toward a chance at a bigger gain. On film, you can see the moment where Burrow spots Iosivas and immediately turns his attention to the slot receiver.

13-yard throw to Ja’Marr Chase versus Patrick Surtain in the second quarter

Burrow and Chase started working on perfecting the back shoulder route in 2018 at LSU. Every rep they’ve done since then has led up to this perfect play against the Broncos and the best cornerback in the NFL.

It takes your best to beat Surtain on this route. The chemistry, timing and trust that Burrow and Chase share is as good as it gets. Burrow threw Chase open, and Chase did the rest. Burrow also managed to make this throw right as the Broncos’ blitz got home.

This is teach tape for how to run one of the most common plays in football.

Negated (but still incredible) 50-yard touchdown to Andrei Iosivas, called back due to an illegal shift penalty, followed by a 19-yard first down run on the following play to end the third quarter

Ja’Quan McMillan caught the Bengals off guard again with another blitz out of the slot on third down. This time, he got Burrow wrapped up.

But McMillan couldn’t bring him down.

Burrow shook off the sack attempt from the leaping corner right as he also was stepping up in the pocket to escape pressure coming from Alex Cappa’s side. Burrow’s ability to process and get away from two different pressures at the same time is what highlight reels are made of.

Now that he had a second to get a throw off, Burrow turned his attention right to Iosivas. Burrow showed the ability to flip the switch from escape mode to throw mode faster than I’ve ever seen from a quarterback. He went from protecting the ball with two hands to reaching back in the throwing position in one still frame.

Burrow spotted a window over the middle to get the throw off to Iosivas. The throw wasn’t easy. Iosivas wasn’t even in the camera frame when Burrow got rid of the ball.

Burrow had to get the ball over linebacker Jonah Ellis, who was spying and playing a very shallow zone over the middle. Burrow gave Iosivas the chance to showcase his long arms on a leaping catch at the 40-yard line. And just like Burrow does all the time, he purposefully led Iosivas up the field into open space.

Burrow literally kept Iosivas’ momentum going with his ball placement, and Iosivas ran for a touchdown.

The play got called back due to the penalty. So then on 3rd and 13, Burrow scrambled for a 19-yard gain in a play reminiscent of his touchdown run against the Giants.

Burrow’s creativity, ability to find open space in the pocket and athleticism lead to big plays like these.

3rd and 9 conversion to Tee Higgins in the middle of the fourth quarter (Burrow’s throw of the day).

One of the plays of Burrow’s career was the fadeaway touchdown throw that he delivered in the 2021 playoff win over the Raiders.

The quarterbacking mechanics of that play has a lot in common with this completion to Higgins, except for where it took place on the field (the Bengals were in their own territory). Except this time, Burrow was even more off balanced and had to fit the throw into an even tighter window.

Because Devin Cochran and Alex Cappa both allowed pressures from the right side, Burrow had to bail from the pocket and scramble to his right.

In a split second, Burrow had to reach back, jump in the air and fire a throw as hard as he could to Higgins, who was open in a small window between two defenders.

With some really impressive velocity for a quarterback making a jump throw, Burrow squeezed the pass between two defenders. The play kept what should have been the go-ahead touchdown drive rolling.

After this, the Broncos were so tired of getting beat by Higgins that they moved Surtain from matching up against Chase to matching up vs. Higgins.

38-yard throw to Ja’Marr Chase late in the fourth quarter (immediately after Germaine Pratt’s pick)

Burrow had to be very patient to make this play happen. The problem was that the Broncos created pressure off of both edges that got home at the same time that Burrow completed his drop back.

The rest of this play was a lot like Chase’s third quarter touchdown on the road against the Ravens.

(Chase is just out of frame at the top of the screen, about to cross behind a linebacker).

Facing a Cover-3 defense, Burrow threw Chase into the open window over the middle of the field. As Chase ran behind a string of four defenders covering the intermediate range, Burrow looked off the middle linebacker and even got him to step up when Burrow turned his eyes toward an open check down option in Chase Brown.

Burrow baited Jonathon Cooper out of the play and then led Chase into open space with a flick over the middle.

Burrow also made this throw with both feet in the air.

His celebration was the best part. In Steph Curry fashion, Burrow pumped his fist while the ball was in the air. Then after Chase picked up yards after the catch, Burrow did Tiger Woods’ big fist pump celebration as the Bengals made it to the Broncos' 21-yard line with two minutes left in the game.

Beating the blitz in the fourth quarter and overtime

By this point, Broncos DC Vance Joseph knew that he’d have to take some risks to actually stop Burrow and the Bengals in non-short yardage situations. With the Bengals in the red zone, Joseph dialed up back-to-back blitzes on second and third down in the final two minutes and banked on a lapse from Bengals’ pass protection.

That was the only way to stop Burrow on Saturday, who still went 5-for-6 in the fourth quarter against the blitz for 40 total yards and then completed three of four passes against the blitz for 21 yards in overtime.

Once the Bengals made it into field goal range in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, Joseph called two straight blitzes. Following a 4-yard gain on first down, the strategy worked on second down as Burrow threw an incomplete pass. But then on third-and-6, when Joseph called a second straight blitz, Burrow shredded it and hit Chase in stride for an 11-yard gain.

Joseph continued to send pressure in overtime and blitzed four more times. Burrow kept taking advantage. In overtime, Burrow completed three of four passes against the blitz for 21 yards, including the walk-off touchdown to Higgins.

As Burrow once shouted, you can’t zero him.

Once Burrow proved that he couldn’t be blitzed, there was no card left for Joseph to play.

The Bengals executed four verts in overtime as Burrow completed a 31-yard pass down the sideline to Higgins. Joseph had his defenders selling out to stop a slant, which the Bengals had been completing all game. Burrow had the upper hand here as he dropped a deep throw in the bucket for another perfect play. Burrow’s throw led Higgins 20 yards down the field, and Higgins waited to show his hands until the second that he made the catch.

The Bengals got down to the 3-yard line, and then they ran another play that featured Higgins in a one-on-one matchup. The result was a walk-off TD.

The Broncos, one of the best defenses in football, saw 49 passes from Burrow on Saturday. They pressured him 16 times as they faced a crumbling offensive line. They also have the best corner in the NFL.

And yet over those five quarters, the Broncos still couldn’t find a way to stop Burrow and the Bengals’ passing attack.