Burrow's 1 under-center explosive in 3 years vs. 1,499 league-wide; now committed to expansion.

Burrow has produced only 1 explosive completion on under-center play action across 3 seasons (2023–2025), compared to 1,499 league-wide over the same span—a dramatic underperformance relative to peers despite his elite shotgun passing game. This gap has sparked the Bengals' offseason focus on expanding under-center usage to unlock explosive plays. However, Burrow is actively working on under-center play-action drops during the offseason program and has signaled behind the scenes that he's on board with the expansion; he sees the league-wide data showing under-center play action's 19.4% explosive rate versus shotgun's 11.1%, knows the trends, and wants the explosives. He explained his historical reasoning for the shotgun shift and outlined how the Bengals can cycle back to under-center success by making defenses pay for light-box looks.