Joe Burrow's Retirement Rumors and Bengals Frustration

Joe Burrow's Retirement Rumors and Bengals Frustration

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back to the Deep Dive. So you know,

(00:02):
our mission here is to take these huge stacks of
analysis and research and just boil them down to what
really matters, so you get the full picture without all
the noise. And today we are jumping headfirst into a
story that, I mean, it just completely took over the
sports world for a few days. Real the narrative that
Joe Burrow, the Bengals quarterback, might be thinking about quitting

(00:26):
or even retiring, and it all came from one press conference.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
And that narrative, it just exploded. The second those soundbites
hit the internet. It was full blown panic mode, you know,
people saying he wants out exactly. So we're digging into
commentary that really dissected that press conference what he said,
the context to figure out is this just clickbait or
is there some genuine career level frustration here from a
guy who has, i mean demonstrably been through a.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Lot and context is just everything here.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
So the press conference was on a Wednesday, which also
happened b bros. Twenty ninth birthday. The commentary we're using
for this dive was recorded the very next day, December eleventh,
So this was all fresh. The panic was immediate. So
let's start there. What did he actually say that caused
this huge reaction?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, so the first thing people notice was just his demeanor.
The reports all said, somber, reflective, you know, not that
usual swagger, not that.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Joe Burrow weer used to seeing, not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
And the whole idea of him walking away, the immediate
Andrew Luck comparisons. It all hinged on this idea of enjoyment.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's the spark. He was asked about continuing his career,
especially after this insane injury comeback, and he said something
that if you take it by itself, it sounds like
a major life crossroads moment.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah. The foundational quote, the one that started it all,
was basically, if I want to keep doing this, I
have to have fun doing it. And he added, you know,
I've been through a lot, and if it's not fun,
then what am I doing it for?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Which, on its own, I mean, that sounds pretty reasonable
for any athlete. Right, It's like all sacrifice, But there
has to be.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
A point totally. But then the follow up quersion is
where the whole narrative really you took off. The reporter
asked if he even viewed the career as fun before
the injury, and his answer was so blunt. He just said, no,
I wouldn't say. I wouldn't say I viewed it that way.
Then he kind of expanded on it, saying he's been
through more than most and that the job is certainly

(02:22):
not easy on the brain or the body.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
And then the final piece that just confirmed everyone's worst
fears was when he said, there are a lot of
things going on right now, football related personally, all the above.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
And boom. If you're looking for a clickable headline, that's
all you need. Andrew Luck two point zero. It's easy
to build that story if you ignore everything else, right,
but if you connect it to the reality of what
he just did that quitting narrative, it just dissolves.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
It does. And I do want to say, I get
why the Andrew Luck thing landed with people. That fear
of athlete burnout, especially after a brutal injury cycle. It's
a very real thing. We hear you on that.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh, absolutely, the fear is legitimate, but in this specific case,
the facts just make that comparison. I think the commentary
called it ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, if this guy was
really ready to quit. If he'd lost the desire, why
on earth would he have just gone through one of
the most grueling, aggressive recovery timelines we've seen in a long,
long time.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Let's get into those details, because they're just their astounding. Yeah,
he had surgery for a grade three toe sprain. And
for you listening, grade three isn't a tweak. The ligament
is fully.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Torn, it's ruptured. For a quarterback, that big toe is
everything for power for planting your foot.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Critical.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
So what does he do. He comes back to play
just sixty nine days after the surgery. Sixty nine when
this source commentary was recorded, he was only eighty three
days out from the operation.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
The most optimistic best case scenario people were throwing around
was like maybe mid December.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Right, and that was if everything went perfectly.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
He didn't just meet that timeline. He shattered it by weeks. Yeah,
that is not what someone does if they're thinking about retiring.
It's the definition of being obsessed with your craft.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
But that's the real tragedy here, and it's the real
source of his frustration. He poured every single bit of
himself into that recovery just to get back to a team.
That was one in eight without him.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
He defied medical science to get back, and his reward
was realizing the season was, for all intents and purposes,
already over.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's the core of it. The team is heading for
a third street year of missing the playoffs. So all
that rehab, all that pain, all that focus to come back.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Early, it resulted in the same outcome. The race is over.
The data analysts pointed out that even if they won
out won every single game, they still only had something
like a twenty seven percent chance of making the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
That feeling of a wasted season, I mean, you can
imagine how crushing that is. You make this huge personal
sacrifice and it doesn't matter because of things you can't control.
The source was clear. It makes him feel helpless. Right,
he beat the clock, he did his part, and he
still can't get the team where it needs to go
because the hole was just too deep.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And that helplessness, that's the ke It forces us to
stop looking at his internal feelings and start looking at
the external factors, the organizational failures. Exactly because if you
as a fan or that frustrated watching this, just imagine
being the guy who actually went through the surgery.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
For it, So we have to pivot to the systemic stuff,
which the commentary says is the real problem here, and
it completely justifies why he was so somber. Everyone believes
Burrow is obsessed with being great, No one doubts that,
but that drive is being undermined by what the analyst
called an unacceptable run from the front office. If this
team is ever going to win a championship, the organization

(05:37):
has to be better. They need to be aggressive and
get talent in there this offseason.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
And what's interesting is that the analysis we looked at
didn't just make a general criticism. Yeah, they laid out
a very specific pattern of mistakes, a clear pattern.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I mean, for three years the defense has been a
problem and they just let top tier talent walk out
the door for nothing.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
You're talking about Jesse Bates and DJ Reader's exactly pro.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Bowl level safety in Bates a cornerstone defensive tackle, and
Reader they walk in back to back years and the
team fails to find anyone close to their level to
replace them, and guess what, the defense immediately got worse.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
No surprise there. And then you get to the whole
Trey Hendrickson situation, which is just a financial and strategic disaster.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Oh, it's a text bookcase of bad asset management. The
commentary basically said, the team botched it. They poured over
twenty nine million dollars into him this year.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And what did they get for that.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Four sacks before he got hurt for the season. You
paid all that money for almost no production.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
The argument from the get go was that the front
office had to make a choice either give him the
big long term extension he wanted or trade him for
draft picks to fix other holes, like in the secondary.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
And they did neither.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
They did neither. They paid a huge one year number,
got nothing back, and now that money is just gone.
You can't use it to replace a Bates or a Reader.
That is the kind of failure that makes your franchise
quarterback feel completely helpless.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
And that's the we need you to see. The frustration
isn't about playing football. It's about the competence of the
organization around him.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Right. And while the sources we looked at dismiss the
idea he's trying to get out right now, they make
a really important point. If this mismanagement keeps up, that's
when a real long term problem can start. To grow.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
So what does this mean for the future. The pressure
is just squarely on the front office now, the need
to be aggressive to make changes. That was true before
he said a word.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, his comments just put a giant spotlight on it.
The organization has to be better, They have to be aggressive.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
And this offseason is going to be full of these
huge questions. What happens with coach Zach Taylor, what specific
players do they bring in? And how does Joe Burrowly
feel about the team's leadership.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
All of it is on the table now.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Before we wrap up, I think it's worth touching on
a counterpoint the analyst brought up to sort of round
out the image of him as this unhappy, driven robot.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Oh yeah, that's essential. This is a whole person, not
just a quote they mentioned. He plays the piano right, and.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
He's into different foods. He's a curious guy. It shows
he has balance in his life even when his job
is chaotic. He's not just some football automaton.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
My favorite detail is that he's a big Pokemon guy.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yes, specifically Pokemon Ruby, which I mean that kind of
dates I was on Yellow, red, and blue, huh.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Right, But it shows he has an outlet, you know,
a way to decompress that's totally separate from the NFL grind.
His frustration is about his job, not his life.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
So to synthesize all this, the whole retirement narrative, it's
just flimsy. It's built on twisting of very understandable frustrations.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
A frustration that doesn't come from a lack of desire,
but from a feeling of helplessness after he showed this
incredible commitment only to see it wasted by the team's shortcomings. Right,
the real message from that press conference was a warning
shot straight to the Bengals front office, and that message
is they cannot continue to waste Joe birth.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
That is the ultimate takeaway. It's a call to action.
And so we want to leave you with this final thought,
and it builds on an analogy from the source material
about Steph Curry, who dealt with all those ankle injuries
early in his career. If a player's desire to be
great is never in doubt, but their ability to stay
healthy and their organization's ability to support them are both
in question at the same time. Which one of those

(09:16):
two things, the body's health or the organization's competence becomes
the biggest threat to actually winning a championship.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
That's a powerful question to think about as this season
wraps up and a very critical offseason begins.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Thanks for joining us for the Deep Dive. We'll catch
you next time.