1. We have made it to the end of one of the worst weeks of the year in sports; that means Super Bowl Sunday is almost here.
Then, all eyes will be on Joe Burrow, who has become one of the most popular players in the league. The quarterback has remade a laughingstock NFL franchise while also coming back from a significant injury. This alone should make everyone a Burrow fan, but the 25-year-old also seems like an immensely likable guy.
Burrow went viral earlier this week for this quote:
“Focus on getting better. Don’t have a workout and post it on Instagram the next day and then go sit on your butt the next day and everyone thinks you’re working hard but you’re not. Work in silence. Don’t show anyone what you’re doing. Let your performance on Friday nights and Saturday nights and Sunday nights show all the hard work you put in. Don’t worry about all that social media stuff.”
Curiously, Burrow has posted on Instagram throughout the season. However, he has posted on Twitter only twice since July and both of those tweets were ads.
I spent some time looking up old Burrow tweets to learn more about him and by the end of my research, I became an even bigger fan. The guy might be an even better tweeter than he is a quarterback.
• He is an OUTSTANDING media critic.
• He has excellent taste in television.
• He is on the right side of the key Thanksgiving debate.
• He is wonderfully self-deprecating, yet perfectly confident.
• He knows how to troll.
• He knows the perfect way to call out the scam that is the NCAA.
• He has fantastic takes on random things.
• He knows doppelgängers.
Hopefully, the Bengals win the Super Bowl, and Burrow gets back to tweeting for our enjoyment.
He can even repurpose some of his best tweets, which he did with that quote above regarding posting on Instagram.
2. Reason 4,294,710 why Inside the NBA is the greatest sports studio show of all time.
3. Eminem, who will be one of the halftime performers Sunday, is a big Al Michaels fan. Who knew?
If he gets to meet Al on Sunday, hopefully it goes a little better than his famous encounter with another broadcasting legend, Brent Musburger.
4. I want nothing more in sports right now than for Tom Brady to become an analyst or host of his own ManningCast show next season.
5. Austin Powers is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I was happy to see the cast back together for this Super Bowl commercial.
6. This week's SI Media Podcast features an interview with Bengals legend Boomer Esiason.
The NFL Today panelist and WFAN radio host talks about how his former franchise went from NFL joke to Super Bowl participant, what makes Joe Burrow so special and the best moments in Bengals history.
Esiason also tells what happened during that AFC title game's halftime show when the CBS panel was drowned out by a concert, reveals whether Aaron Rodgers ever reached out to him after a recent controversy and talks about his long career in sports media, which includes calling 19 Super Bowls on radio, working with Al Michaels on Monday Night Football and doing morning drive radio for nearly 15 years.
Following Esiason is the weekly "Traina Thoughts" segment with Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York. This week's segment features a conversation about a variety of Super Bowl prop bets that we like, Super Bowl party food and reviews for a bunch of news shows we recently watched.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
