Could Joe Burrow be as clutch as Tom Brady? NFL analyst thinks so

The NFL's supersized Wild Card weekend will be a showcase of the league's past, present, and future. It's possible that Tom Brady could fulfill all three. He is set to compete in his 46th career playoff game when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, Fox).

The present and future is also on hand through the playoff debut of 2020's top overall pick Joe Burrow, who will star for the Cincinnati Bengals against the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, NBC).

As brilliant as Burrow has been during the early stages of his NFL career, particularly during his sophomore season, comparing his professional work to that of the brilliant Brady this early seems both misguided and ill-advised.

But one analyst already appears to be making the case.

Joe Burrow's NFL career already features several big wins

In a Wednesday tweet, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky, who also played in the NFL as a quarterback for 12 seasons, gave his followers a history lesson about Burrow. Despite the Bengals quarterback's brief time on the gridiron big stage, he has already come up clutch in several situations, even dating to his latter collegiate days at LSU.

Joe Burrow has played 6 “have to have it games” in his career.

2019 LSU
Bama
Georgia (SEC title)
Oklahoma (semi)
Clemson (natty)

2021 BENGALS
Ravens (Week 16)
Chiefs (Week 17)

In those games:

6-0 W-L
2,669 Pass Yds (444/game)
27 TD
0 Int
@PaulHembo 👊🏻

Dating back to 2019, Orlovsky theorizes, Burrow has played in six "have to have it" games, starting with his final season in Baton Rouge. That includes two late regular season games with the Bengals (wins over Baltimore and Kansas City that helped them secure their first division title since 2015) and three prior "playoff" games at the college level. Not only did Burrow win each of these contests, but he has averaged 444 yards through the air and boasts a brilliant 27-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Joe Burrow is the real deal. #RuleTheJungle @JoeyB

📺: #KCvsCIN on CBS
📱: NFL app https://t.co/kMuWu6eUg7

While it's not exactly enough to top Brady's current body of work, it's certainly encouraging to see what Burrow has been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Like Brady before him, he'll now have a chance to reverse a historically downtrodden franchise's fortunes.

Burrow's first professional playoff game awaits this weekend, as the Bengals will host the fifth-seeded Las Vegas Raiders. To keep his impeccable streak alive, he'll have to fight off some negative football history: Cincinnati (10-7) hasn't won a playoff since the 1990-91 season, when they topped the Houston Oilers in the AFC Wild Card playoffs.

They'll now face a Raiders squad that clinched its postseason spot in the final game of the regular season against the Los Angeles Chargers.