Let Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald tell it, comments from Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow were what lit a fire under him during Super Bowl LVI.
In a sitdown with Peter King of NBC Sports, Donald said the sideline scuffle roughly one minute into the second half featured some on-field chatter. The fact Burrow told Donald a shove that sent him out of bounds was a clean play apparently had a big impact on the defensive tackle:
“Actually, Burrow was the one, he looked at me, like, ‘Hey Aaron, that was a clean play.’ The quarterback told me that! I feel everybody start pushing me, hitting me. I almost lost it. The refs were like, Aaron, get out of here. They [the Bengals] already got me mad. Now they want to push on me, say all these words to me.
“You just woke me up. You just woke me up!”
In other words, good-guy Burrow being a fierce competitor woke the best defensive player in the NFL up a bit after a quiet first half. It’s only natural for Burrow’s teammates to take exception to a hit on him near the sideline late in a play (Donald said Hakeem Adeniji was talking a little trash too), but guys like Burrow and Donald will use whatever little motivation they can find to turn it up a notch.
That drive came after an interception. Before that, the Bengals had scored on the 75-yard touchdown to Tee Higgins to start the second half. Donald getting a sack later made the Bengals settle for a field goal.
This is more a fun note from the Super Bowl than anything else, but it’s somehow a good mark on Burrow’s character, even if a future Hall of Famer used it as motivation to kick into high gear.
