CINCINNATI — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow hadn’t scuffled in practice since college. But when Dayo Odeyingbo grabbed his jersey after a pass that Bears first-round pick Dillion Thieneman intercepted Thursday, Burrow held the defensive end’s shirt and started barking.
The whole thing lasted two seconds — just enough time for Burrow’s teammates to run to his defense.
“I don’t care what we do,” receiver Ja’Marr Chase said. “We just better [freaking] protect Joe.”
Burrow could laugh at it later — “Fun to go at it a little bit,” he said — but there’s no questioning the urgency he stressing during training camp.
“I’m tired of saying next year, next year, next year,” he said. “This is it. Your life is too short to keep pushing things down the road. I’m trying to instill some urgency and some intensity in everybody to go and be great every day and try and go make it happen.”
He wasn’t speaking to Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, but Williams would be wise to listen. The Ghost of Quarterbacks Past knows the value of winning while you can — and how fleeting true championship opportunities can be.
Burrow is no longer the cigar-smoking, young hotshot quarterback who, like Williams, won the Heisman Trophy before being picked No. 1 overall. Amazingly, he’s turning 30 in December.
Time, then, is of the essence.
“I’m trying to put it out in the world, I’m trying to manifest it,” he said. “I’m try to show our guys the urgency that I have and that I want us to have as an organization, to go and make it happen. You can keep pushing it down the road or you can talk about it now and say, ‘This is the year.’”
Burrow is, depending on how you view the game, anywhere between the second- and fifth-best passer on the planet. His team has climbed the mountain, though, and slid back down it. In his second year, Burrow’s Bengals went to the Super Bowl, even leading the Rams in the final two minutes of the game. In Year 3, the Bengals reached the AFC championship game and lost to the Chiefs by 3. They haven’t been back to the playoffs since. Beset by injuries in two of the past three seasons, Burrow has gone 19-16 as the starter since the end of the 2022 season. Without him, the Bengals have gone 5-11.
Williams has nowhere near the same resume through his first two seasons. If anything, his first year — the Matt Eberflus disaster — was one for the burn pile. But the Bears have now what the Bengals did when they went to the Super Bowl — standout pass-catchers playing on a rookie contract and an up-and-coming quarterback. Both teams have questions about their porous defense. Neither team can compete for a title without their quarterbacks being stars.
Before practice — during which Burrow was particularly masterful in the red zone — Bears coach Ben Johnson praised Burrow’s pocket awareness, ability to recognize coverage and get the ball to his best receivers.
“This guy is like a surgeon back there,” Johnson said.
Burrow has kept an eye on Williams since he was at LSU and took him to dinner while Williams was on a recruiting trip.
“He made some incredible plays and they always seemed to come up in huge spots … ” Burrow said. “To have him make those plays in those big spots, it’s good for the league, it’s good for Chicago, it’s good for everybody.”
Burrow knows what would be good for him, too.
“We have to step up and make something happen this year,” he said. “We’re working very hard for it. the urgency’s very high in the locker room. You can feel it. it’s palpable.”
It’s now or never.
“That’s how I’m treating it,” he said.
