Twenty-seven touchdowns arrived before a December birthday, yet Joe Burrow stood at a Cincinnati lectern to question whether he still enjoyed playing football.
The quarterback admitted he was not having fun just weeks after returning from another surgical procedure while his team sat outside the postseason picture. Those remarks prompted weeks of speculation regarding his future with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Eleven months later, the narrative shifted as Burrow delivered touchdown passes inside the Santiago Bernabéu while the Bengals returned to winning form. His career has continually balanced elite passing efficiency against physical setbacks that frequently interrupted his availability.
“If you want to keep playing, you have to enjoy it,” Burrow told reporters in Cincinnati.
Knee, wrist, and toe injuries each disrupted stretches of his professional career following his selection as the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft out of LSU. Despite these interruptions, Burrow became only the second player to win the Comeback Player of the Year award twice.
Born in Ames, Iowa, on Dec. 10, 1996, while his father Jim coached at Iowa State, Burrow moved through Nebraska and North Dakota before his family settled in Athens, Ohio. At Athens High School, he threw 157 touchdown passes and earned Ohio Mr. Football honors in 2014 before beginning a college career that initially stalled behind J.T. Barrett at Ohio State.
A graduate transfer to LSU in 2018 altered his trajectory entirely. Working with passing game coordinator Joe Brady, Burrow threw an FBS-record 60 touchdown passes during the 2019 season and secured the Heisman Trophy by the largest margin in the award’s history.
Following a rookie campaign cut short by a torn ACL and MCL in Landover, Maryland, Burrow rebounded to guide Cincinnati to Super Bowl LVI during the 2021 season. He subsequently signed a five-year, $275 million contract extension in September 2023 that briefly made him the highest-paid player in NFL history by annual average.
A right wrist ligament injury ended his 2023 season prematurely in November. Although he led the league with 4,918 passing yards and 43 touchdowns in 2024, the Bengals finished 9–8 and missed the playoffs. A severe toe injury sustained against Jacksonville in 2025 required surgery before his Thanksgiving return against Baltimore.
“The focus is on winning, not his mental health,” a source close to the quarterback said, dismissing speculation about his long-term commitment to the franchise.
Healthy to begin his seventh professional season, Burrow threw four touchdown passes in an October victory against Baltimore to earn AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors. On Nov. 1, he recorded 462 passing yards, five touchdowns, and a rushing score in a 43–36 overtime win over Tennessee.
One week later, in the franchise’s first regular-season game outside the United States, Burrow completed 24 of 29 passes for 271 yards and three touchdowns as the Bengals defeated Atlanta 34–17 in Madrid to reach a 6–2 record.
Beyond the field, Burrow appeared in the second season of Netflix’s Quarterback series released in July 2025 and expressed interest in representing the United States in flag football at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The Bengals face Pittsburgh at home on Sunday evening, Nov. 15, looking to avenge a loss from earlier in the autumn. Eight days later, Cincinnati travels to Landover for a Monday night matchup at the stadium where Burrow suffered his initial major knee injury as a rookie.
Worth a look
