Greg Olsen believes Joe Burrow is sending ‘discreet’ signals about NFL future

If Joe Burrow isn’t having fun with the Cincinnati Bengals, Greg Olsen wonders if the quarterback might look to have fun somewhere else.

Burrow caused a bit of a stir last week when the Bengals quarterback said if he wants to keep playing, he wants to make sure he’s able to have fun doing it. The comment caused rampant speculation about Burrow’s future with the Bengals, and in the NFL.

After a seemingly not so fun 24-0 shutout loss to the Baltimore Ravens Sunday afternoon, Burrow clarified that his comments about having fun had “nothing to do with Cincinnati.”

But if ever there was a season or time in the quarterback’s career where he might be having a hard time finding the fun in football, this would probably be it. Burrow missed nine games during an IR stint and the Bengals just secured their third straight season without a playoff appearance. And according to Greg Olsen, Burrow might be sending the Bengals signals, even if he didn’t mean to accuse them of making football less fun.

.@gregolsen88 and @BarstoolGruden react to Joe Burrow’s comments about wanting to have fun playing football again pic.twitter.com/w0sGKOmgoF

— Wake Up Barstool (@wakeupbarstool) December 15, 2025

“Losing sucks. It’s too much work,” Olsen said Monday morning on Wake Up Barstool. “I don’t buy the whole, ‘Joe Burrow is considering not playing.’ I don’t buy any of that. I think the guy is a killer. I think he is an absolute savage competitor. I think he’s one of the best quarterbacks we’ve seen in the last 10 years.

“The thing about him is I do think he’s sending a message there in his own discreet way, passive aggressive, saying ‘If you guys don’t fix this… then I’m not having fun here, I might have to look somewhere else. I might have to continue my career somewhere else.’ Part of me feels like it’s a little bit of a passive aggressive throw that out there, and hopefully somebody gets that message and starts making some things happen.”

How could Burrow be happy right now? He’s a quarterback with Super Bowl expectations around him and he just missed the playoffs for the third season in a row. Imagine how Burrow would have looked if he said this season has been a lot of fun after spending half the year on IR and missing the playoffs again? At some point, he’s going to look around and wonder if Cincinnati is the best place for him to continue chasing a Super Bowl.

Burrow is 29 years old, the same age Andrew Luck was when he stunned the football world and walked away from the NFL for good. That’s not to say Burrow is about to retire, it’s not to say he’s about to demand a trade either. But at 29, things have gone backwards for Burrow in Cincinnati since leading them to a Super Bowl appearance nearly four years ago.