Dan Orlovsky Proclaims Bengals As Top Threat To Kansas City Chiefs
Credit: Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
The Zac Taylor/Joe Burrow Bengals are no stranger to slow and starts, but 2024 looked like it was on its way to taking the cake. The team’s poor play, and somehow worse coaching, had seemingly pushed Bengals fan’s beyond their typical “we’ll be fine” tolerance. A feeling of unfixable disaster rumbled through the city as Cincinnati tumbled to a 1-4 start.
Yet here the team sits, 4 weeks later, in the thick of the AFC wild card race with a huge game against the Ravens on Thursday night. Despite everything we’ve seen, a run at a playoff spot seems within reach.
But if you’re gonna buy in, why stop there? ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky apparently wouldn’t.
On First Take, the former quarterback turned universally respected analyst didn’t hesitate when asked who he thought was the biggest threat to Kansas City in the AFC.
“It’s the Bengals.” Orlovsky confidently proclaimed despite the teams 4-5 record. “When it comes to that big moment, that game… that’s the guy that they don’t want to see. Buffalo absolutely capable of it, Baltimore absolutely capable of it, [but] there’s one quarterback that I think sits at the top of the Kansas City Chiefs don’t want to see list. Chiefs don’t want to see Joe Burrow. It has been Joe Burrow. He’s the one that they know can figure them out, can schematically understand, can throw it into the windows that you have to anticipate it before it’s happening.”
Orlovsky went on to shower Burrow with praise for his excellent season despite the roster hurdles the team has faced.
“Joe Burrow has been fantastic this season and he was again [Sunday] without Tee Higgins. Mike Gisecki has stepped up and kind of become that second guy. Jamar didn’t even have a big game and they scored four 41!”
If the run game continues to grow and Gisecki, who’s three biggest games have come during Tee’s absence, can continue his level of play when Higgins returns, and the wide receiver room can finally stabilize the sky is still the limit for this group this year. There are just too many weapons and Orlovsky knows it.
“I think because there’s a way that you got to play Kansas City you got to be really patient on offense you got to be very disciplined and you got to have people that can beat man coverage… they got three cats that can beat man man coverage in Cincinnati if they’re healthy.” The former Lion said. “I think if they win Thursday night against Baltimore they’re going to get in, but that’s the guy that [Chiefs] don’t want to see again.”
It’s all a great reminder that Burrow was right when he said his window was his whole career. Cincinnati has one of the two best QBs in the game and as long as they can get themselves to the dance, the favorite should absolutely fear them.
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