Bengals Beat: ‘Welcome Back’ Joe Burrow, One Tough MF’er Who Helps Bengals Send Message To Rest of NFL

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ja’Marr Chase knows Joe Burrow better than anyone.

That’s why when he told everyone in camp and early in the season that he was hoping his quarterback would take his time, he had days like Sunday in mind.

What the Bengals quarterback did Sunday was nothing short of historic in its proportions. He completed 28 of his 32 passes on the day for 283 yards while firing three touchdowns. At one point, he completed 19 straight passes, one shy of Ken Anderson’s then-NFL record of 20 in a row set on Jan. 3, 1983.

“I was able to put the ball — for the most part all day — in the right spot, and spot that I was trying to,” Burrow said. “That’s what I expect out of myself. My footwork, I think a lot about and my mechanics. And so when I’m not that, it’s disappointing. And so this is my standard.”

“All you need to say now is ‘Welcome back Burrow’, welcome back,” said Chase, who finished with 10 catches on 12 targets for 100 yards, one touchdown and one celebratory backflip. “I definitely felt the energy even before we got off the plane.”

Burrow looked like the $275 million man Sunday in leading the Bengals to their third straight win, 31-17, over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.

“Yeah, it was a big win, but it was just one,” Burrow said in his typically understated style. “There’s still a lot of football left to be played. So it was week seven, we got 10 more. So this one means nothing if we come out and lay an egg next week and week after that. So we just gotta keep stacking ’em together.”

Burrow will always underplay and undersell his performance. But when you open the last two games completing 17-of-19 passes and look picture-perfect against one of the best defenses in football on their turf, it’s hard to undersell that type of greatness.

“Nineteen consecutive completions is pretty good,” Taylor told me. “That typically means that everybody else is doing their job as well. This was a big challenge for our offensive line and a big challenge for our backs and our tight ends as well. They rose to that challenge. They were where they needed to be. They did a great job giving him a pocket he could work with. It was a great job by our receivers playing on time and being where they needed to be so he could find them.”

If there’s one play that defined Burrow’s day it came on the opening drive. Facing third-and-10 from the Bengals 31, Nick Bosa broke though and had a shot on Burrow. But Burrow escaped, circled, rolled to his right, unleashed a laser to Tee Higgins for 11 yards and then took a massive blow from Fred Warner.

“I even stopped scrambling because I didn’t even know he threw the ball,” Chase said. “After the play, I just looked at the screen and didn’t even realize he did so much on that play. I actually made a comment (to someone). ‘Man, that’s a tough (MF’er). For real, it’s a quarterback taking hits like that from linebackers. Bounce right up and keep it going. That’s what he does.”

“That extension on the first third-and-10 that Tee made himself available and got that big first down,” Zac Taylor said. “That really catapulted us into the game. We sit here and talk about these games that we’ve lost, and it was those plays that we didn’t make early in the game. That’s a play that jumpstarts you and you end up scoring a touchdown. That’s really what it comes down to.”

When Burrow was pressured, he managed to run up the middle six times for 43 yards. The harmony between the offensive line and Burrow Sunday was something to behold.

“They were awesome. Not just in the in the pass pro, but also in the run game. That was a big part of the game today. We were super efficient in the run game. I think we ended up with over a hundred yards rushing. So, that’s going to be a big part of what we do going forward. That was a complete game on offense. We have to stack more of those together.”

Burrow proved Sunday he is as tough as he is great. His teammates have long known this about their offensive leader. Now, the rest of the NFL is finding out.

Burrow responds to the physicality of the game. He had a black compression sleeve on his right elbow after the game to treat some of the bumps and bruises. He got up several times from his first-down scrambles and banged his helmet. These are the runs he couldn’t make on one healthy calf. He can now.

“I worked really hard on that all offseason,” Burrow told me. “And for four to five weeks, I haven’t been able to really show that, and so when you see hard work pay off, it’s exciting.”

The Bengals defense has been dominant for a while, recording three more turnovers Sunday. Ja’Marr Chase had another 100-yard receiving game. Evan McPherson drilled another 56-yard field goal. But make no mistake, when Joe Burrow authors the day he did Sunday, the Bengals are a viable Super Bowl contender.

With the Buffalo Bills on tap next Sunday night at Paycor Stadium, the Bengals are hoping this is just the beginning of a special run for Joe Burrow.