Young gun Joe Burrow joins exclusive club with Dan Marino

Bill Riccette

Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:57 PM·2 min read

It’s safe to say Joe Burrow is recovered from his ACL injury. He’s one of the biggest reasons the Bengals are 3-2 through five weeks. He has 11 touchdowns and almost 1,300 yards.

The best part is he’s been consistent with his touchdown passes. He has at least two touchdown passes in all five games so far in 2021 (he threw three against the Steelers in Week 3). And this is all in just his second year in the NFL.

Only one other second-year quarterback has thrown two or more touchdowns in each of the first five games of a season in the Super Bowl era and that is Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino in 1984.

Joe Burrow has 2 pass TD today, including a 70-yard TD pass to Ja'Marr Chase in the 2nd quarter (longest pass of his NFL career)
Burrow joins HOF Dan Marino as the only 2nd-year QBs w/ 2+ pass TD in each of their team's first 5 games of a season in the Super Bowl era@Bengals https://t.co/jIzqgj1Ebt
— NFL Research (@NFLResearch) October 10, 2021

As you can see, Burrow had joined Marino and two other Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Peyton Manning in 1999 and Kurt Warner in 1999, as second-year quarterbacks to throw two touchdowns in each of the first four games of their second season.

If Burrow wants to match Marino’s mark from that 1984 season, he’ll need to throw a pair of touchdowns over the next five games, as Marino’s mark reached ten games with at least a pair before throwing just one in his 11th game of the year. That would mark the only game of that season in which Marino did not throw at least two touchdowns, a season that also saw Marino finish with four straight games of four touchdown throws.

Cincinnati’s next five games are at Detroit, at Baltimore, at the Jets, vs Cleveland, at Las Vegas. Their bye comes after Cleveland.