When Joe Burrow spoke to the media last month, he made no mistake about what his goals for the 2026 Cincinnati Bengals were. After signing Bryan Cook, Boye Mafe, Jonathan Allen, and trading for star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II, Burrow has his eyes set on the Lombardi Trophy.
“We’re going to go win a lot of games this year and play great and win a Super Bowl,” Burrow said.
The roster has players with Super Bowl victories on their resumes, so they will look to set that standard. Bryan Cook won
a championship with the Kansas City Chiefs, and center Ted Karras won two Super Bowls with the New England Patriots.
Karras was on First Word with James Rapien this week, and after being asked about Burrow’s comments, he offered his own perspective.
“I think that’s a great goal, and it’s always our goal, but there’s a lot of football to be played until then, so I don’t concern myself with February 27 right now,” Karras stated.
Karras has the same goal; he just appears to be taking a more day-by-day approach to getting there.
“I’m not a prediction guy,” he said. “I’m an internal goals guy. I’ll throw out Super Bowl when it’s appropriate, but as of June 2, right now, I am going to just continue to do my job to the best of my ability.”
Karras is an 11-year NFL vet who has been to the promised land twice, so his perspective will hold weight in the locker room. It seems his first goal is to take the AFC North.
“You’ve got to win your division, that’s always the first goal,” he said. “And then, as we get going, the Super Bowl is always the goal, overarching. We don’t talk about that much internally, and it did fire everyone up that Joe said that, and I love that, but we have a lot of things to work on before we’re gonna be in a Super Bowl after we missed the dance three years in a row.”
Burrow’s comments likely did excite the team, but Karras knows how much work there is to be done between now and then, and if there was ever a Bengals roster that should do it, this may just be the one.
