Joe Burrow just put the entire NFL on notice in icy, spicy Week 1 press conference

He's icy. He's spicy. He's Joe Sheisty. Consider my Cincinnati Bengals inner man cheerleading fanboy fully activated after Joe Burrow graced us Who Dey Heads with his presence in an all-too-rare, lengthy press conference on Wednesday. And consider this a de facto trademark of that slant-rhyming icy-spicy-Sheisty run. BARS.

On to Cincinnati, er, the business at hand (h/t UNC Billy B). On the eve of the NFL season officially kicking off, the face of the Bengals franchise sported his trademark, austere countenance that's earned him the nickname of Joe Brrr. He patiently took questions from the local media. Even cracked some smiles here and there.

But make no mistake. This is a man on a mission to dominate the NFL. Again. Just like he did last year en route to leading the league in touchdown passes and passing yards. We're going to dive into some takeaways from Burrow's extended presser and why it should have Bengals fans as switched on for a season as any in team history.

Trivia fodder for the commenters: Who's the coach in the

Subplot that may only interest me: Let's see if I get any search traction with this Ice Spice-adjacent angle.

Joe Burrow confirms this is the healthiest he's been in a long while

If you're somehow landing on this page and do not know the laundry list of irksome hurdles and major injuries Joe Burrow has overcome throughout his NFL career, allow me to elucidate.

Actually, let me get to what Burrow said first, because that'll take some time. It's worth listing out every single thing after the fact to underscore how big of a deal it is that he's actually healthy coming into the 2025 campaign. Asked about his health, this was the key bit of Burrow's response:

"I'm very confident. My body's in a place it hasn't been in years past."

I would be very afraid if my team faced Burrow this year. So let's get into his prior camp woes, shall we?

As a rookie in 2020, not to trivialize a global pandemic and conflate it with football, but Burrow was joining the NFL's worst team at the worst possible time. Then, his knee bent every which way it shouldn't have and cut that season short.

At his next camp, Burrow battled back from his brutal injury to get on the field for Week 1. From there, he just ho-hum led Cincinnati to Super Bowl LVI. The following offseason, his appendix exploded in camp, resulting in a hospital stay and early-season rust. Still led the Bengals to the AFC Championship Game off an 0-2 start.

Looked like Burrow's 2023 camp was going to come and go without incident, only for him to go down with a calf injury that hindered his mobility, yielding yet another 0-2 start. In a critical game against the division rival Ravens, a ligament in Burrow's right throwing wrist snapped as he fired a touchdown pass on his final attempt.

Chances are you, reader, saw the season Burrow had in 2024 despite not feeling too great about his surgically repaired wrist the whole way through. Imagine what could be on the horizon now that he's as close to full health as ever, in the midst of his NFL prime.

PS, peep that Bengals injury report. We are ready to ROLL!!!

Dubious officiating will not stop Joe Burrow from utter gridiron supremacy

Cue the inflammatory folk of social media. I can hear them now. Hurtling accusations at me about how the Chiefs' Super Bowls are all thanks to officiating crews functioning as a collective 12th man-esque entity in Kansas City's favor.

I'm not foolish enough to buy into that. I'm also not blind to the fact that the Bengals have been absolutely hosed multiple times in big spots. The last AFC title game in KC, for instance, Cincinnati got a third-down stop, and it was completely wiped out. Officials rewarded the Chiefs a whole extra down.

I swear this happened. In the fourth quarter. Score knotted at 20. Super Bowl berth on the line. Madness.

The last Bengals-Chiefs meeting was in Week 2, where Daijahn Anthony got whistled for a defensive pass interference on 4th and 16. If a wide receiver attacked the ball in the air like he did, and made contact with a DB, it wouldn't be called. That's all I'll say.

And there have been more instances of officiating going sideways — against Cincinnati. No need to rehash any more pain. Burrow assured Who Dey Nation that the Bengals are smart about scouting the crews, and know what to focus on better than ever.

"I try to voice my opinions in a respectful way, and oftentimes you get respect back when you do that that way — and sometimes you don't. That’s the NFL. […] I would say that you certainly have some games that you didn’t quite think we're officiated correctly, and oftentimes, it is repeat offenders. And you know who they are usually, and you adjust accordingly. […] We know early, and every crew is gonna have their own emphasis. So you can go back and look at how many times they threw a certain penalty, and emphasize that early in the week depending on the crew. And then you also have your own experiences with these guys, and just accordingly as I said."

Brace yourselves, rest of NFL, for more of Joe Burrow's wheels

As if that 47-yard touchdown run against the Giants in 2024 wasn't enough to wake folks up to how fleet of foot Burrow is, he intends to make that an expanded part of his quarterbacking arsenal this coming season.

Since he's so lethal as a pocket quarterback, it's often seldom necessary for Burrow to eat up yards on the ground. He's more inclined to extend plays out of structure, buy time with his legs, and always look to make a chunk play as a passer.

Don't think we'll see Zac Taylor or Dan Pitcher install a ton of designed quarterback runs into the playbook or anything like that. Just be on the lookout, though, for Burrow to be more of a dangerous dual threat than he's ever been. Again — a scary proposition for the rest of the league!

Joe Burrow sets the tone for fast Bengals start, which has proven elusive

If there were only a handheld mic that Joe Brrr could've dropped after this stone-cold quote:

You've heard the numbers before. Zac Taylor is 1-11 in Weeks 1 and 2 during his Bengals tenure. That means Burrow is 1-9 in those games. That's not acceptable. Neither of them think it is, don't worry. It's just that every single year, something seems to get in the way.

To reiterate, the healthy training camp Burrow finally had allowed him to gain valuable reps so that he's not getting his sea legs in the regular season. Also helping the cause was the fact that Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins weren't holding out. Banking more reps with those stud wideouts can only mitigate the chances of Cincinnati stumbling again in the first couple games.

I love that Burrow is publicly setting the standard. He's not a big rah-rah guy in the locker room and is less candid with the media than he used to be. The upside of that is, when he does speak, he still doesn't mince words, but the less-frequent media sessions mean what Burrow says carries even more weight with it.

Burrow has almost single-handedly manifested a culture shift in Cincinnati. He's all but demanded on the record that certain players be retained on big contracts. By and large, everything Joe has wanted to get done in the past two years in particular, it's gotten done.

We shall see if manifesting that early-season execution as he did here, combined with good health, savvy ref-checking, and more totes as a rusher, can all translate to a playoff revenge tour for Joe Burrow and the 2025 Cincinnati Bengals.

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