His teammates love him, his trainers admire him — hell, even Gronk wants to play with him. Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow epitomizes the definition of leadership and has set a high standard for all NFL quarterbacks.
If a quarterback’s character is revealed by what he does off the field, then Burrow is practically a saint.
Burrow’s commendable leadership traits may be compared to that of Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray, who has recently been under fire for acting “immature.” After the Pro Bowl, Murray scrubbed his Instagram posts and unfollowed the Cardinals, leading to weeks of speculation on Murray’s future with the franchise.
NFL’s Ian Rapoport mentioned Tom Brady as one of the greatest quarterbacks in history not just by the numbers, but by elevating his teammates and “making them feel like they were important.”
The Joe Burrow effect works in a strikingly similar way.
From NFL Now: The #AZCardinals want to see more leadership from Kyler Murray. For an example, I told a story I had heard about #Bengals QB Joe Burrow. pic.twitter.com/M66xu8juMT
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 15, 2022
Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow shows incredible maturity and leadership at his age
In the video above, Rapoport shares an anecdote about how Joe Burrow uplifted everybody who surrounded him, even his personal trainers. Rapoport talked to a doctor who operated on Joe Burrow back when he suffered his season-ending injury, and the doctor believed Burrow’s greatest trait was that he “empowered all the trainers and people working with him to think they were so important that they had to do their absolute best to help him rehab.”
Rapoport adds: “That is some leadership stuff.”
Burrow is a year older than Murray but only has one full season of NFL experience under his belt. In that one season, Burrow has overcome his ACL injury, led the laughed-at Bengals to a winning record, and reached the Super Bowl against all odds.
Murray, on the other hand, lost the No. 1 seed in the NFC, lost to the Rams in the Wild Card round, and then chose to passive-aggressively detach himself from the Cardinals franchise.
Murray has since posted a picture of himself on Instagram in a Cardinals jersey with the caption, “Love me or hate me but I’m going to continue to grow and get better,” which could signal a potential reconciliation between him and Arizona.
But people will always remember how he first reacted, how he stayed silent when times got tough and left his teammates hanging.
One quarterback handles adversity well, the other doesn’t. Which would you rather have as your franchise quarterback?
We thought so: Joe freaking Franchise.