Bengals Beat: Reading Smoke Signals On Joe Burrow ‘I’ve Been Through A Lot’ While Ja’Marr Chase Laughs Off Concerns About His Quarterback

CINCINNATI — There’s a lot going on with Joe Burrow.

What exactly no one really knows. But it’s been a wild week for reading tealeaves.

First, there was the “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” comment about this lost season after Sunday’s gut-punching 39-34 loss to the Bills in Orchard Park where the Bengals led 28-18 with under nine minutes remaining.

Then Burrow threw a bizarre interception in which the ball came out of his hand in a strange fashion. The interception led to a pick-6 63-yard touchdown. Burrow then threw a pass on his next snap that was tipped and picked off, setting up another Bills touchdown. The Bills were gifted 14 points late and held on.

Very understandably, Burrow looked equal parts dejected and introspective after the game.

“I think I’ve matured this year and gained some perspective on everything when I was out,” Burrow said postgame. “I’m just grateful to be out there and be a quarterback in the NFL and be one of the best. I don’t take that for granted. I work really hard to put myself in the position to do that. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m a player and I am going to go try and play as good as I can and see where we are at.

“That’s how the cookie crumbled this year. Obviously, I would have loved to be out there more and be able to make an impact. But that wasn’t the case. I fought my butt off to get back to this spot and to be able to be out there with everybody and for our organization and this city. That’s what we’re going to continue to do. I take it very seriously. I love what I do. I’m going to continue to do it.”

The loss hurt Burrow a lot. That much was clear. The 4-9 next to the Bengals line in the standings hurt more. He turned 29 on Wednesday and he is another year into his career without a ring, and a loss Sunday to the Ravens and he’ll be going on three straight seasons without the playoffs. The results on the field certainly suggest the franchise is clearly not heading in the right direction. Maybe it was his birthday, which he’s not a big fan of in the middle of the season, or it was the reality of another non-playoff season that touched off Burrow Wednesday.

He made one thing very clear. He wants to win very badly. He loves football. He does not love playing on a team that is clearly underachieving and has a front office that hasn’t done everything it can to put a complementary defense on the field to help him. But the desire to win a Super Bowl still burns deep inside of him.

“It certainly doesn’t change my desire to win,” Burrow said of the injuries and losses this season (though he is 3-1 as a starter and 7-1 in his last eight starts). But then Burrow went in a different direction, throwing out a veiled suggestion that the Bengals had better change the way they approach their business, both players and front office.

“You know, if I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it,” Burrow said. “I’ve been through a lot, and if it’s not fun, then what am I doing it for? So that’s mindset I’m trying to bring to the table.”

That one message was more about how seriously he views his job and how much he rejects losing. You’re not going to have fun if you’re 4-9.

“I’m not sure there was a singular moment or time,” Burrow said. “It’s just a reflection, reflection on a lot of things that I’ve done and been through in my career. I think I’ve been through more than most, and certainly not easy on the brain or the body.”

There’s just a lot of things going on right now, lot of things going on right now,” Burrow said. That, of course, begs the question if it’s personal or football-related. “All of the above,” Burrow told me.

This set off a firestorm of speculation to exactly what kind of message Burrow was – or was not – sending to the front office, coaching staff and players. The Bengals have plummeted into the abyss in a year where the AFC was wide-open and there for taking, dragging Burrow down with them.

Fans and media weren’t the only ones noticing. Ja’Marr Chase spotted Burrow on TV and thought it might be AI, you know, those fake video press conferences you see all the time now on Instagram or Twitter. Burrow’s mood in the presser Wednesday was that jarring. But Chase stopped well short of trying to read anything more into it.

“I don’t really know nothing about it at the day,” Chase said Thursday. “I’ve seen a little bit from the TV walking outside from practice, and then I turned my eyes, but I don’t know nothing about it. At the end of the day, I see him the same every day. To me, he loves football. But that’s a ‘him’ question. I can’t answer that for him. From what I see, I see the same person every day. He comes to work, he loves work. He don’t look like he’s bummed to be here.”

Pressed to speculate on how the last two weeks have impacted Burrow, Chase again said it was time for everyone to take a deep breath. This is not Andrew Luck 2.0.

“Y’all be really putting some clues together,” Chase said. “Boy, I swear, honestly, nothing’s wrong with a little emotion at the end of the day, especially coming back from injury. The man loves the game. I think he loves the game from what I what I’ve learned from him. Also at the end of the day, I can’t really say what he feels at the end of the day, but from what I see man, he seems the same every day. Comes to work, ready to play, comes to practice, the same guy. He helps me every day. There’s no negativity in the building.”

“He smiles every day. The narrative that y’all trying to paint on him right now, I don’t see it, you know? I’m saying at the end of the day, he’s the same person every day. He comes to work. He loves work, he loves the guys in the locker room, so he’s pretty positive.”

One thing Burrow did appreciate was his offensive line getting him a Pokemon box for his special birthday. Talking about that not only brought out a kid-like smile but elicited some genuine laughter as he was asked about his favorite characters, cards and video games in the series.

Chase did confirm one thing – Burrow is not a big fan of efforts to draw attention to his birthday, like bringing in a cake and singing happy birthday like the team did Wednesday.

“He don’t like it. So I think I don’t know whose idea it was. I was trying to get a cake brought in here to piss him off a little bit more, because I know he don’t really do that,” Chase laughed like the football brother he is to Burrow. “So, I just wanted to show him like bro, we appreciate you brothers. Get a big cake for you. And you know, I want to give him a kick in face, but it’s good seeing him like that. You know I’m saying. I know he don’t like it, but I like seeing him like that. Sometimes you need to embrace it.”

After the week Burrow has had, he could use some brotherly love. Now, if only the Bengals could turn the Ravens into Pokemon characters on Sunday, maybe we’d get a happier version of Joe Shiesty next week.