Tony Pike on Joe Burrow's Performance on Monday Night Football

Tony Pike on Joe Burrow's Performance on Monday Night Football. The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Los Angeles Rams 19-16

Transcript

00:00 Tony, let's start with Joe Burrow and a lot of this is going to be, I think on Joe Burrow.

00:05 What are your overall thoughts on his performance?

00:09 Because my main takeaway, and I always do this winners and losers column for all Bengals.

00:14 It started with him being a winner because of all of the talk.

00:18 I mean, a week ago, people thought he was going on injured reserve and going to miss

00:23 four games or more.

00:25 He was out there.

00:26 He wasn't his normal self, but he did put the Bengals in position to win.

00:30 I was impressed by Joe Burrow.

00:32 What were your thoughts being someone that has obviously played the position at a high

00:36 level?

00:37 Yeah, I thought it was just a unique buildup to the game, right?

00:42 From last week when he could barely walk to midfield to shake Lamar Jackson's hand to

00:49 re aggravating the injury to the golf cart ride with Mike Brown to the Bengals over the

00:55 weekend signing AJ McCarron, everything in my opinion was pointing to him not playing.

01:00 And then you get the report early on Monday morning that that barring a setback, he's

01:04 going to be going.

01:06 But for me, this is always going to be about what are the limitations?

01:10 You know, I, I have been very open to when I've talked in the past about Zach Taylor

01:16 as a play caller, not Zach Taylor as a coach, because I think he is a phenomenal coach from

01:20 a culture standpoint, from a leadership standpoint.

01:23 I've questioned a lot of the play calling, and you're now asking a play caller to essentially

01:30 coach with one hand tied behind his back because Joe Burrow is not 100 percent.

01:34 So you know, the aspect of Joe Burrow going out there and playing through it and playing

01:39 tough and making the throws that he needs to make and doing just enough, I thought is

01:45 a huge step forward.

01:46 I thought the biggest step forward was the fact that he spoke after the game that there

01:49 was no setback, even though he threw the ball 49 times, which is absolutely incredible

01:54 to me.

01:55 But no setback, they find a way to win.

01:59 Those to me are the two biggest wins, and Joe Burrow is a catalyst for a lot of that.