Starting With His Name, ‘Joe’ Burrow Will Lead Cincinnati Bengals To Super Bowl Victory

There I was, nodding while standing up close and personal Friday afternoon in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Drake Stadium near the reason the Cincinnati Bengals will complete their miracle Sunday night at SoFi Stadium by conquering the hometown Rams during Super Bowl LVI.

Joe Burrow.

• He was among the first of his teammates to settle behind a microphone in the stands before the global media surged his way with something between a poor man’s blitz and a slow-motion stampede.

To translate: Burrow is a contradiction. He spends nearly zero time on social media during the season. He also remains the opposite of NFL quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes who huddle with Jake From State Farm (according to the Bengals public relations department, Burrow does no commercials). Even so, he embraces the spotlight.

• He wore shades so LA cool during Friday’s interview session that Snoop Dogg would have dapped him up before urging the Bengals quarterback to skip the locker room Sunday to spend halftime on stage with Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and himself.

To translate: Joe Burrow continued The Joe Burrow Fashion Show. He has his own style, by the way. Instead of greeting reporters with SpongeBob stuff or a multicolored fleece hoodie or a Sherpa jacket, he wore one of his sweat socks inside out. “Yeah, I’ve probably done that since high school (in Athens, Ohio),” he said later, shrugging. “Don’t know why. Just part of what I do.”

• He remained strikingly composed throughout questions thrown his way in bunches for nearly 30 minutes.

To translate: Despite finishing his second NFL season (or really his first since he missed most of his rookie year with a knee injury), the 25-year-old Burrow looked and sounded like the 44-year-old guy Bengals defensive back Mike Hilton tried desperately not to mention.

“I want to say the name, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on him,” Hilton said, laughing. Then he added after he shook his head while laughing some more, “OK, the way Joe carries himself, he reminds me of Tom Brady. He’s locked in. He’s a terminator, man. Once he gets his mind focused on completing a goal, he’s going to do everything in his power to get it done.”

Ask the Tennessee Titans, who were the AFC’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs. They sacked Burrow nine times, but they still didn’t win.

Then Burrow and the Bengals faced the heavily favored Chiefs during the AFC Championship Game in Kansas City, where the league’s loudest outdoor stadium resides. Mahomes took the Chiefs to the two previous Super Bowls, winning one of them, and he had his team up 18 points in this one.

The Chiefs didn’t win.

We’re back to Burrow, who lacks what Forbes determined were Brady’s $31 million worth of endorsement deals this season, and while Brady owns seven world championship rings, Burrow is seeking his first.

Burrow also isn’t even the highest paid player on the Bengals due to the NFL’s rookie-scale contract that pays Burrow $2.3 million this season compared to Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson at $20 million to lead the team.

Let’s discuss what Burrow has, though.

He has “it.” That “it” helped Burrow lead LSU to a national title in 2019, and that “it” earned him the NFL ‘s Comeback Player of the Year award this week despite significant damage last year to his knee, and that ‘it” will propel Burrow to most valuable player honors of this Super Bowl.

Brady has been there, done that five times.

But enough about Tom.

What about the Joes?

Every Joe in the Super Bowl has won it.

Since I beat many of my reporting colleagues to Burrow’s podium, I asked three of the opening group of questions, and “Joe” was the theme.

Here was my first question: What do you think about the comparisons out there between you and Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Joe Flacco and Joe Namath?

“I’m just trying to be the best player that I can be,” Burrow said with his slightly monotone style, always striving “not to have diarrhea of the mouth” as he would mention later in his interview session. “I’m trying to be the best Joe Burrow I can be. It doesn’t matter. I know everybody is trying to make these comparisons, but I’m not trying to compare myself to anybody else.”

Here was my second question: Have you ever talked to any of those Joes?

“I have not. I have not,” Burrow said.

Here was my third question: How does this feel for you right now a couple of days before the Super Bowl compared to before the national championship game with LSU?

“It’s very similar to winning the national championship, because right before (that game, you also) had a two-week break,” Burrow said. “You have more media and all of that kind of stuff, and at the time, that was the biggest game of my life. Now this is the biggest game of my life, so it’s very similar.”

So he’s saying . . .

Another Joe is about to win the Super Bowl.