Ron Rivera’s pre-draft love for Joe Burrow stings after QB punched Super Bowl ticket

The matchup for Super Bowl LVI is set.

After a historically great Divisional Round, expectations for Sunday’s Conference Championship Games were sky-high. While they didn’t quite live up to that hype, they more than delivered from an entertainment standpoint.

We’ll start in the NFC, where Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and the Rams — almost in spite of head coach Sean McVay —  erased a 10-point fourth quarter deficit to knock off Deebo Samuel, Trent Williams and the 49ers.

In the AFC, Joe Burrow and the Bengals overcame a 21-3 hole to upset Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs on the road.

It was an improbable outcome given the circumstances (KC played a nearly-perfect first half and won the coin toss to start overtime), but a lack of execution left the door open for Cincinnati and they made the most of it.

We could go on for hours about Mahomes’ nightmare second half, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t heap praise on Burrow.

After all, it wasn’t long ago that Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera gave the then-LSU sensation a rave review following the 2020 draft.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1487937586676985860

The Washington Commanders likely would’ve drafted Joe Burrow if they owned the No. 1 overall pick in 2020.

Before Washington hosted the Bengals in November of 2020, Rivera made one thing very clear: Burrow was the only player the franchise would’ve drafted over Chase Young with the No. 2 overall selection.

"“We think Joe is the full package. We really do,” Rivera told reporters. “We think Chase (Young) is the full package. Depending on what Cincinnati did, that’s what we were going to do, the opposite. We didn’t think we would lose out either way. We really didn’t. We think both players are going to be great players and have great careers and we’re fired up that we have Chase.”"

Old quotes have a tendency to be retrieved from the archives in situations like this, so it’s no surprise Rivera’s pre-draft love for Burrow has reemerged after the former No. 1 overall pick just punched a Super Bowl ticket in his second season (first full one as the starter) in a Bengals uniform.

Looking back on it, Washington was just an additional loss away in 2020 from securing the top pick in the draft. Of course, they won three games — all against awful teams — and Cincinnati finished 2-14.

It’s easy to see why Rivera seemingly made his mind up about drafting Burrow if he lasted until the second pick. At the time, Burrow was coming off a record-breaking season in Baton Rouge, while Washington was fresh off their third straight year in which three or more quarterbacks started games.

Obviously, this isn’t an indictment on the Young pick. We’re merely pointing out that Washington was one loss away from solving their long-standing QB conundrum. As much as Young might transform Washington’s defense, not even Aaron Donald can impact a franchise like an upper-echelon quarterback.

That obviously isn’t implying that Burrow would’ve turned Washington around already, either.

But the fact he has the Bengals, who hadn’t won a playoff game since 1990 before this season, in position to win their first Super Bowl title in franchise history suggests Washington fans would be living pretty carefree right now if he was quarterbacking the organization.

Oh well.