Joe Burrow is taking the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl. The NFL’s ‘Tiger King’, the guy with the real chains and the smoking cigar cocked like a pistol, is going to the big time despite a rookie season entirely disrupted by an ACL injury and a franchise meant to be forever stuck in the 1980s.
But you know this by now. And you’re likely tired - no, bored - of hearing how ice cold this guy’s supposed Cinci swag is.
The vibes, though, are real. And while there is a temptation to view Burrow and his fellow Bengals as arrogant youngsters, former Louisiana State University (LSU) head coach Ed Orgeron, one of the men who knows Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase best from their university football days, would argue that for your own good, this is a very, very bad idea.
“It took me five minutes to realise Joe was the smartest person in the room,” says Orgeron, who watched from the front row as Burrow and Chase lifted the public university from its 12-year football doldrums to an undefeated championship season.
During the campaign, Burrow shattered the single-season records for passes completed and was crowned the Heisman Trophy winner.
“When you meet Joe, you don’t know it. He has to prove it. Our players had some other quarterbacks that they believed in, but he won over that football team. When he came to LSU, Joe kept his mouth shut. He worked hard. His first goal was to win over his teammates with hard work, and he showed them by his dedication. He won every sprint, he got after it, practised hard, and for him, to be able to capture that football team the way he did - he's like the pied piper.”
LSU is not an easy university at which to be a footballer, let alone the starting quarterback on a cross-country gamble after playing third-string at Ohio State University for three seasons. The students, the fans and the alumni bleed the school colours of purple and gold, and if they do not believe their players are bleeding enough for them, LSU football can be a merciless place.
But the state of Louisiana will be, as Orgeron says, firmly behind Burrow as he continues his streak of saving one once-proud footballing outpost at a time.
“Joe’s intelligent. He knows when and when not to flash,” Orgeron says. “Joe, when it comes to football, every day now, he’s going to be the most focused guy you see. He’s serious. That’s the Joe you’re going to get every day. But the times he chooses to smoke the cigar, put the chain on, the glasses, he knows what he’s doing. He knows the right time to do it. And that’s part of his persona.”
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