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          Bengals' Joe Burrow balancing health, 'drive for greatness'

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          McAfee declares Joe Burrow 'all the way back' (1:31)

          Pat McAfee and Darius Butler debate how optimistic they are about Joe Burrow's recovery from injury. (1:31)

          • Ben Baby, ESPN Staff WriterMay 8, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
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              Ben Baby covers the Cincinnati Bengals for ESPN. He joined the company in July 2019. Prior to ESPN, he worked for various newspapers in Texas, most recently at The Dallas Morning News where he covered college sports. He provides daily coverage of the Bengals for ESPN.com, while making appearances on SportsCenter, ESPN's NFL shows and ESPN Radio programs. A native of Grapevine, Texas, he graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in journalism. He is an adjunct journalism professor at Southern Methodist University and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
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          CINCINNATI -- An hourlong workout in downtown Cincinnati offered a mere slice into what the past few months have been like for Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.

          He made plenty of throws, worked on building rapport with his tight ends and continued the process of recovering from right wrist surgery. The late-morning practice session showed that Burrow is making good progress as he recovers from the torn ligament that ended his season in November.

          But that was just one hour of thousands between now and the start of next season. In his news conference following Tuesday's workout, Burrow provided a bigger glimpse into his recovery.

          And more importantly, the challenge ahead.

          This offseason, he's trying to strike the balance between pursuing greatness and weathering the rigors of the NFL. That could be the key between the Bengals returning to the top of the AFC or being outside of the playoffs for the second straight season.

          "I'm going to be honest with myself about how my body's feeling, maybe a little more cautious than I have been in years past," Burrow said Tuesday. "That's kind of been something that's been on my mind for the last couple months."

          Evidence shows it goes back even further than that.

          When Burrow had his end-of-season news conference in January, he said his approach ahead of his fifth season could differ from previous offseasons.

          "Maybe a couple weeks before [training camp], just laying off the gas a little bit," Burrow said Jan. 8. "I don't know. We'll see. Depends on how the body is feeling."

          That is especially important given what happened to him last July.

          In the second practice of last year's training camp, Burrow suffered a strained right calf. While was able to suit up for Week 1, he was far from 100 percent and aggravated the injury in a Week 2 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. The soft-tissue injury set the wheels in motion for a calamitous season.

          That theme popped up again Tuesday when Burrow was asked about what the team needs to do to avoid a slow start. Since the Bengals drafted Burrow with the first overall pick in the 2020 draft, they've been one of the NFL's worst teams at the beginning of the season. In Weeks 1 and 2 during that span, they have a 1-7 record, tied with the Minnesota Vikings for the lowest winning percentage.

          Burrow has had difficult starts to each season. When he joined the league, the world was still in the relatively early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the following years, he dealt with recovery from knee surgery (2021), an emergency appendectomy (2022) and the calf issue (2023) that preceded the wrist injury.

          Burrow knows he can't have a repeat of what happened last season.

          "I need to try to be out there for training camp, get as many reps as I can with the guys," Burrow said when asked about how to fix those slow starts. "I'm going to be smart about it. If I need a break, I need a break."

          But scaling things back also runs counter to his desire to perform as well as possible. That trait made him a Heisman Trophy winner and a college football national champion, and it helped flip the trajectory of the entire Bengals franchise and made him one of the NFL's richest quarterbacks.

          Despite recovering from something that is not a "minor injury by any means" and was "difficult," he has no problem continuing the process.

          "My 'why' is always just continuing that drive for greatness, continuing that drive every day, trying to improve," Burrow said Tuesday. "I'm addicted to getting better, and that feeling, there's nothing like the feeling of getting better because that makes the day-to-day really worth it."

          Bengals wide receiver Trenton Irwin, the most experienced target currently available with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins not at voluntary workouts, has gotten a sense of Burrow's desire this offseason.

          "He's obviously still working on what he wants to be better at," Irwin said. "I'm sure there's plenty of things there. That's the type of guy he is."

          Burrow said he felt good the past two days as the Bengals started the second phase of offseason workouts. He repeatedly said he's "in a good spot" at the moment and could be cleared for full contact around June. But he admitted he never knows exactly how his body will feel until the next morning.

          And that process will be as important as any while the Bengals prepare to make another push to the Super Bowl.

          "That's a continued process of learning when to push through something that you think maybe might be there," Burrow said. "Another day you might not be feeling great and this muscle's a little tight like, 'Hey, we got to take it easy today.'

          "So that's something that I'm continuing to learn."