The last three seasons have been pretty rough for the Cincinnati Bengals. Star QB Joe Burrow has been superb (when healthy), but the team has missed the playoffs in each of the last three seasons. As Burrow heads into his seventh NFL season and the final months of his 20s, he’s trying to manifest some more urgency in his teammates.
Speaking to the media on Thursday, Burrow declared that he’s treating the 2026 season like it’s “now or never” to win a championship. When asked why he is treating it that way, Burrow said he’s trying to “manifest it” and show his younger teammates how to act with more urgency in preparation.
“That’s how I’m treating it, for sure. That’s how I’m treating it,” Burrow said.
“I’m trying to put it out into the world. I’m trying to manifest it,” he then explained. “I’m trying to show our guys the urgency that I have and that I want us to have as an organization to go and make it happen.
“You can keep pushing it down the road, or you can talk about it now and say, ‘This is the year.’ And I’m tired of saying, ‘Next year, next year, next year.’ This is it. Life is too short to keep pushing things down the road. I’m trying to instill some urgency and some intensity in everybody to go and be great every day and try to go make it happen.”
How will he build a winner in Cincinnati?
Burrow won a national title at LSU by delivering one of the best seasons in college football history with one of the greatest collections of talent ever assembled. But despite reaching a Super Bowl in his second NFL season, Burrow has found that the approach to winning in the NFL is different.
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“You’ve got to have a really close-knit team,” Burrow said. “You’ve got to have at team that trusts each other. You’ve got to have a team that wants to go to war for each other and fight for each other — wants to hang out off the field, wants to play games in the locker room, wants to sit with each other at lunch and have deep conversations. And you have to have great players and great coaches, obviously. But that’s not necessarily — a lot of teams have great players and great coaches, that’s not necessarily what does it.
“We’re working really hard for it. The urgency is very high in the locker room. You can feel it. It’s palpable. We have to be more consistent on offense. We have to — our standard is so high, but it’s so high because of what we’ve done and what we can do. So, I’m going to continue to push that and we’re going to keep getting better and see where we’re at Week 1. But I’m so excited for it.”
The problem Burrow might face is being forced to watch from the sidelines as the Bengals’ perennially struggling defense concedes the leads he builds for them.
In college, Burrow could mask the team’s average defense by having the highest-scoring offense in the nation. In the NFL, having a bad defense usually means you’re watching the playoffs at home – regardless of how good your quarterback is.
Can Burrow “manifest” a championship in 2026?
