Joe Burrow’s birthday press conference opened everyone’s eyes, but the Bengals need to be more focused than anyone
Bengals QB Joe Burrow turned heads with his latest press conference.
Joe Burrow is as calculated as he is honest. There’s rarely a time in his weekly press conferences when he doesn’t take a second to formulate exactly what he wants to convey when the questions warrant more than football cliché answers. Like he’s surveying a secondary after the snap, the franchise quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals is just as careful with his words as he is with the ball in his hands.
When the question surrounds how he views playing football after coming back from a third major injury in six years, the response needs to be as authentic as Burrow.
Burrow was asked that exact question by ESPN’s Ben Baby during Wednesday’s presser, just three days after his second game following his return from turf toe. Cincinnati is now 4-9 on the season, despite being 3-1 with him starting the games, and a trip back to the playoffs for the first time in three years is highly unlikely.
All of this to contemplate on his 29th birthday while giving an answer that would turns many heads.
“It certainly doesn’t change my desire to win,” Burrow said. “If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it. I’ve been through a lot, and if it’s not fun, then what am I doing it for? So that’s the mindset I’m trying to bring the table.”
That alone was enough to make a statement. As a followup question, CLNS Media’s Mike Petraglia asked Burrow if the circumstances of the injury and the way the season has played out has made it tough to have fun.
“Certainly,” Burrow said after taking three seconds to answer.
Alright, let’s try to make rational sense of all this.
What is going through Joe Burrow’s mind
Probably a lot of things! Sunday was the first time Burrow has lost a game in over a calendar year. The Bengals have lost plenty of games while he was recovering his toe faster than anyone thought possible, but Cincinnati ended the 2024 season on a five-game win streak and started 2-0 with him under center for the first five quarters and some change.
The loss in Buffalo confirmed the Bengals will finish 2025 with a losing record, but whether the playoffs are possible or not, Burrow will do what he can to finish the year strong. He said it himself when he came back: he’s a football player, and this is his job.
“I’m a football player, and if I get hurt, I’m going to go through the rehab process and then I’m going to let everyone know when I feel like I can go out there and play,” Burrow said two days before beating the Baltimore Ravens on Thanksgiving night. “I don’t really know what else to say about that. I’m not ever going to go to somebody and say, ‘Yeah, I’m healthy, but I don’t think I should go out there and play.’ That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
But what happens when things keep getting in the way of you doing your job, and how far you can go with it? Injuries and the team around him are certainly part of the equation here. Combining the two leads to what we saw Wednesday.
It’s one thing for a quarterback, still a year away from turning 30, to have three major surgeries for injuries caused by the beatings he’s taken for his team. When he came back from the first one in 2021, he commanded a surprise trip to the Super Bowl. When he returned from the next two in 2024 and this year, the results have been significantly worse.
Because the team is significantly worse around him. Yes, most of that is on the defense, but you can’t make the playoffs without at least a little bit of complementary football.
Burrow has put in as much work in the training room as he’s put in on the field over the last two years, and when he finally makes it out to play, he alone can’t carry the team back to where they want to go. I would be kidding myself if I thought that doesn’t play at least some part in his “I have to have fun” reflection.
And you would be too. Yes, playing football for millions upon millions of dollars may sound better than the office job you’re currently doing while reading this article. What about when you’re rightfully regarded as one of the very best and most valuable players in the game, and your peers in that upper echelon are experiencing more success on better teams with better leadership than you? Are you so capable to compartmentalize more than the person actually in these shoes?
Not to take anything away from you, stranger, but I doubt that you are.
“There’s a lot of things going on right now,” said Burrow said when asked if he was frustrated. When asked if it was football-related things or things in his personal life, he offered a quicker response.
“All the above.”
I also doubt that all this means Burrow is seriously contemplating a shocking early retirement ala Andrew Luck. That future may not be impossible, but there are more things that would need to occur before it arrives. Cincinnati should be hyper-focused on making sure it never does.
How the Bengals should react to Burrow’s words
Understand why Burrow may be feeling down in the dumps, and recognize that time with him is not infinite. Suffering yet another injury while trying to elevate his team has clearly taken a toll on him. Part of it could be self-reflection of injuries piling up and the frustrating nature of it. He could be taking ownership in him being off the field as often as he is.
That doesn’t mean the Bengals shouldn’t also, or even take extra measures to help him out. There isn’t much the top brass of the organization can do to prevent injury aside from ensuring his offensive line is as good as it can be, but support for a quarterback goes beyond his protection.
Whatever needs to be done to ensure Burrow can win in Cincinnati needs to be the priority. Evolving the team-building and scouting process, finalizing contract negotiations without unnecessary holdouts, perhaps hiring an actual general manager who would have actually firm control over the personnel department?
Burrow isn’t a crutch for the Bengals to lean on so they can try win their way only to fall short again. He’s the most important ingredient in bringing a Lombardi Trophy to Paycor Stadium if the proper recipe is followed.
Cincinnati needs to learn a new recipe. That’s what they can do to help turn that frown upside down.
Burrow himself is the master behind his own happiness, and staying healthy is surely a large factor in that. But if the Bengals keep finding themselves in this spot over and over again with their QB, the fun will eventually run out for good.
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