Cincinnati Bengals: Is Joe Burrow not receiving enough blame?

Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals commenced the 2024 season with a dud, losing at home to the New England Patriots, 16-10. 

In his first game since suffering a season-ending wrist injury in November of last season, Burrow finished with just 164 passing yards, while New England out-gained Cincinnati 290-224 in total yards. 

Is it already time to sound the alarm on the Bengals?

On Wednesday's edition of "The Facility," cohost James Jones opined that Burrow continually gets a pass compared to the critiques of other premier quarterbacks.

"Joe Burrow has not been good the past two years. He was 5-5 last year and then went out with an injury. Then, they [Bengals] went 4-3 without Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow without top, elite wide receivers is average," Jones said. "We keep living on the Super Bowl appearance, but we don't live on other stuff of other quarterbacks. Joe Burrow's not playing good football right now, and we keep putting him up there, saying ‘he's better than Josh Allen. He's the No. 2 quarterback in football.' A lot of people say it. … you just lost to the Patriots. There's a lot of people that picked the Patriots probably not to win one game this year. …

"You're supposed to be the second-best quarterback in football. Everybody praising that you're the only one that can challenge Patrick Mahomes and all this. Well, the last year-and-a-half, you have not been a good quarterback, and if it was any other quarterback, we wouldn't keep saying ‘oh man, if this, if that, if that, if this.' No, the man's got to play better."

Prior to going down with a wrist injury last season, Burrow totaled 2,309 passing yards, 15 passing touchdowns, six interceptions and a 91.0 passer rating, while completing 66.8% of his passes in 10