Before this season started, Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow became the highest-paid player in the history of the NFL. Unfortunately for him, his season ended prematurely after he injured his wrist last month, and he got upstaged by his backup quarterback Jake Browning in just the second start of his NFL career.
During Monday night’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Jake Browning threw for 354 yards, which is more than Joe Burrow threw in any of his games throughout the season, as Andrew Siciliano of the NFL Network pointed out on Monday night.
“Jake Browning has 353 yards passing, the most by a Bengals QB in any game this season,” Siciliano said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
Jake Browning has 353 yards passing, the most by a Bengals QB in any game this season.
— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) December 5, 2023
Browning’s quarterback rating of 115.5 and completion percentage of 86.5 were also better than all but one of Burrow’s games this season.
It’s obviously not a great look for Burrow that a backup quarterback came in and immediately outperformed him in just his second-ever start, and the NFL world had a lot to say about it on social media as a result.
https://twitter.com/Conor_Green51/status/1731897430126322010?s=20
Did anyone think Jake Browning would throw for more yardage in a game than Burrow did in any of his https://t.co/14hBR8GbaD
— leonard farrell (@ljf1017) December 5, 2023
https://twitter.com/X0AfterHoursX0/status/1731898833515503690?s=20
OWN THAT FRAUD JOE BURROW
LETS GO https://t.co/aqsjfrgDUK— Ant (@LilForskin) December 5, 2023
Burrow is a system QB https://t.co/phgBHPOnOz
— Alex talking at the end of the bar. (@AlexS1898) December 5, 2023
I don’t think anything else needs to be said… https://t.co/LLio4J9YpA
— HoneyBadgerCards (@CardsHoney) December 5, 2023
Burrow has proven his value to the team, leading the Bengals to the Super Bowl in 2021 and the AFC title game last season, but this performance from Browning certainly casts at least a little bit of doubt about how valuable he is to the team.
