Every season, Joe Burrow is at least a good fantasy quarterback. As long as he’s healthy, the Cincinnati Bengals QB should be a solid QB1, at worst. Following another season that was mostly lost due to injury, should fantasy football managers be willing to push the button on Burrow as a top five fantasy QB?
Should You Draft Joe Burrow in Fantasy Football?
In real life, Burrow is a perennial top five quarterback. If the NFL had a massive fantasy draft and each team were starting from scratch, he’d be a surefire top five selection. Burrow is elite.
In fantasy football, it’s not that simple.
Burrow is entering his sixth NFL season. He’s played a full season in half of them. In those three seasons, Burrow has averaged between 20.5 and 22.5 fantasy points per game. Those are great numbers. No one is complaining about that level of production. And the fact that he’s done it in every full season speaks to his ability to do it again. At the same time, Burrow is more reliant on touchdowns than any other elite quarterback.
Last season, five quarterbacks averaged at least 20.0 PPG (Trevor Lawrence was actually fifth at 19.9, but we’re counting him). Here is the percentage of fantasy points for each from rushing:
- Josh Allen 37.3%
- Drake Maye 17.9%
- Matthew Stafford -1.7%
- Patrick Mahomes 25.3%
- Trevor Lawrence 24.8%
Obviously, Stafford is the outlier here. It’s something he’s done before. But look at what it takes for him to reach that 20 PPG threshold. Stafford has to throw for 40+ touchdowns, which he did last year and in the Super Bowl season in 2021. Otherwise, every elite QB has a meaningful portion of his fantasy points come from rushing.
Last season, Burrow had 2.9% of his fantasy points come from rushing.
In 2024, Burrow finished as the QB3, averaging 22.5 PPG. It was the best season of his career. He needed 43 passing touchdowns to get there.
Burrow is in a great offensive situation. He has the best WR in football in Ja’Marr Chase and another high-end talent in Tee Higgins. The Bengals were the No. 28 defense in PFSN Impact Score last season. Constantly in shootouts, that is always good for fantasy production.
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The concern is that touchdowns are subject to variance. Last season, 76.5% of the Bengals’ touchdowns came through the air. In 2024, that was 79.6%. All it would take is a modest regression to around 66%, and Burrow’s fantasy upside is taking a serious hit.
None of this is to say Burrow is a player to avoid. Just understand that when it comes to pocket passers, they are more reliant on touchdowns than their more mobile counterparts.
Burrow’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
In recent seasons, it’s been more viable to spent premium draft capital on a quarterback than during the 2010s. The rise of the mobile QB has resulted in the elite fantasy quarterbacks not only having higher ceilings, but being more predictable year over year.
The running back position really falls off a cliff after the fifth round. The wide receivers are still solid into the middle of drafts, but the position is very flat. There’s not really an advantage gained by taking the WR18 compared to the WR30. These factors combine to make taking someone like Burrow much more viable.
At the same time, this is a deep quarterback group. As with any elite QB, fantasy managers have to wrestle with the fact that there are several quarterbacks with QB1 upside and even legitimate top five upside going outside the top 12. Burrow has proven top-five upside, but is he six rounds better than Jordan Love or Malik Willis? That will be up to you to decide.
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Elite, difference-making QBs matter. However, Burrow’s path to providing that type of value is more difficult than rushing quarterbacks. Additionally, he lacks the ceiling of guys like Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Jayden Daniels.
No matter how prolific a passer Burrow is, he’s capped at 22-23 PPG. Realistically, we saw Burrow’s season already. He threw for almost 5,000 yards and 43 touchdowns in 2024 and still was only able to get to 22.5 PPG. By way of comparison, that same season, Jalen Hurts threw for 2,903 yards and 18 touchdowns. He averaged 21.3 PPG. That’s the power of rushing.
As talented as Burrow is, the opportunity cost of taking a non-mobile quarterback in the fifth or sixth round has proven to be too costly more often than not.
Burrow’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
Dynasty is an entirely different story. Traditional pocket passers typically have longer careers. Jackson and Allen are almost certainly not going to be playing at anywhere near a high level into their late 30s. The latter portion of Burrow’s career could look like Stafford’s, who is still playing at a high level as he pushes 40.
Burrow may not possess the elite ceilings that Allen and Jackson have, but he will be around longer. That matters in dynasty.
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At 29 years old, Burrow could easily play at a QB1 level for another 10 years, provided, of course, he can stay healthy.
We have Burrow as the dynasty QB5. While he is one of the older QBs inside the top eight dynasty quarterbacks, he’s still young in the sense that he’s not as close to decline as the rushing quarterbacks. If you have Burrow in dynasty, he remains the cornerstone of any Superflex roster.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.