• 10 months ago
Joe Burrow and Joe Montana joined Sports Illustrated to discuss this era of quarterbacks, including Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes, who of course are playing in the Super Bowl.

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00:00 I'm Robin Lundberg, joined now by Joe Burrow and Joe Montana,
00:03 who are celebrating St. Patrick's Day with Guinness.
00:05 Now, guys, I know that's the next big day after the Super Bowl,
00:08 but we got to talk about the big game first.
00:10 Let's start with Mr. Montana.
00:12 Joe, how many times have you been asked some variation
00:14 of who the greatest QB of all time is this week?
00:17 You might be the 1,000th time, maybe.
00:23 I'd say I'm right here.
00:26 He's the GOAT, Joe Burrow's the GOAT.
00:29 You know, Joe, what do you think of Joe Montana over there?
00:33 Where would you rank him all time?
00:35 He's obviously one of the all-time greats.
00:37 I try to refrain from the comparisons like that
00:44 because everybody that's in the conversation
00:48 is great in their own way,
00:49 and I try to just appreciate the art of the position.
00:53 And there's so many guys that play it at a high level,
00:56 and there's been so many guys across time
00:58 that have played it at such a high level
01:00 that I just try to appreciate it.
01:02 Now, for yourself, Joe Burrow, that is,
01:05 you were in the AFC Championship game last year.
01:08 You're not very far removed from the Super Bowl,
01:11 but obviously you see Patrick Mahomes back there.
01:14 You saw Josh Allen in the playoffs.
01:16 You saw Lamar Jackson just win the MVP.
01:18 Is there a part of you that feels like
01:20 you've been forgotten about a little bit
01:22 and have something to prove again?
01:24 Well, that's part of getting injured.
01:26 That's part of the game.
01:27 That's -- You know, football moves on
01:29 whether you're out there playing or not.
01:31 And so I'm solely focused on getting this injury right
01:35 and coming back to perform the way that I need to
01:38 to put our team in position to get where we want to get to.
01:42 When you watch Joe Montana,
01:43 this current era of quarterbacks,
01:45 like Mr. Burrow next to you there,
01:47 is there anything that stands out specifically
01:50 that's different from when you played that makes you think,
01:53 "Oh, you know, this is why these guys are excelling"?
01:57 [Silence]
02:02 They're quarterbacks, right?
02:04 And the game's changing.
02:08 And there's nothing they can do about it from when I played
02:11 and from when I played back to when I always --
02:14 Like, the point Joe was bringing up,
02:16 it's like if you go back way back to Otto Graham, right?
02:22 He won 11 championships.
02:24 Nobody -- You know, he's not even in conversation.
02:26 That was before the Super Bowl era,
02:28 but he won 11 NFL championships.
02:30 And so how do you compare them?
02:34 You don't -- How do you look at the guys today?
02:40 As a quarterback, you'd want to be playing today
02:42 because the ball's getting in the air a lot more.
02:46 And as a quarterback, it's also more fun to watch
02:50 because you -- Yeah, it's okay to hand off.
02:53 You know you have to run the ball
02:54 a certain amount of times.
02:56 But as a quarterback, you must be putting it in the air.
02:59 And those guys love having the ball in their hands
03:02 and having the pressure in the game.
03:03 And they're stepping up to it.
03:06 And you can tell by the numbers they're throwing up there.
03:09 And everybody says,
03:12 "Well, what do you think of the game today?"
03:14 Love it. Love watching it.
03:16 Love watching these guys.
03:17 And there's -- Every era, there's a little change.
03:23 And, like, defenses --
03:24 Like, when I first got in the league,
03:27 it was different from when I left the league.
03:29 I mean, there was a time in the beginning I was taught,
03:31 "Okay, so if they have an under slide of their defense,
03:34 they can only play these types of defenses.
03:36 So they will only play."
03:38 That doesn't take place anymore.
03:39 I mean, they'll line up any way they want,
03:41 bring anybody they want, leave people open,
03:43 and say, "You won't get to it.
03:46 You won't find it before we get to you."
03:48 And so the game's changed a lot that way.
03:50 So it's a lot more difficult for them on the studying part
03:54 and recognition part
03:55 because these defensive coaches are, you know,
03:59 they're mixing things up pretty well.
04:01 And so when these guys play at the level they play at,
04:05 like Joe, and my hat's off to him
04:08 because it's -- The game for all quarterbacks
04:13 is somewhere around 75%, I think, mental preparation
04:18 and understanding what the defense is going to do
04:20 and then making that decision once the ball is snapped
04:23 because it's different most of the time than what you see.
04:27 So it's fun to watch.
04:29 Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase told us that if you were healthy,
04:33 the Bengals would be representing the AFC
04:35 in the Super Bowl right now.
04:36 Do you agree with his statement?
04:39 I mean, it's easy to say.
04:40 It's harder to do, right?
04:42 We've been there. We've done that.
04:44 But who knows how it would have played out?
04:47 You know, I was confident in where we were headed
04:49 and the direction that we were going.
04:52 Within the season, we were getting better every week.
04:54 And so it came at a tough time,
04:55 but it's given me an opportunity to get back,
05:00 get all focused on my training,
05:03 get all parts of my body to where they need to be.
05:06 And so when the wrist is right, my body will be in tip-top shape.
05:10 So I'm excited to get back out there
05:11 and go on this run next year.
05:13 When you hear a label like "game manager"
05:16 for both of you guys throwing around for Brock Purdy,
05:18 what's your reaction to that
05:19 considering what he's accomplished?
05:21 Well, you -- first of all,
05:25 you better be a game manager as a quarterback.
05:28 Otherwise, it's going to go haywire immediately,
05:33 and you're not going to be able to operate the offense.
05:35 So that's a prerequisite to playing the quarterback position
05:40 is you have to be the game manager.
05:42 You have to know situations.
05:44 You have to know how many timeouts.
05:46 You got to know whether it's third and four or third and six.
05:48 You got to know where the sticks are.
05:50 You got to know whether you need a touchdown or a field goal
05:51 in this situation to maybe determine
05:53 your decision-making on third down.
05:55 You got to know if it's an opportunity for you
05:57 to go for it on fourth down
05:59 to, again, change your decision-making on third down.
06:03 And then, you know, Brock has made tons of plays
06:05 with his legs outside the structure of the offense.
06:08 So, you know, when I hear --
06:12 all you got to do is go watch the tape,
06:13 and you see that Brock is playing at a high level.
06:16 Yeah.
06:17 I was talking to Rich Gannon yesterday,
06:23 and he said the same thing
06:24 when one of the guys brought up game manager,
06:28 and he said all quarterbacks are game managers.
06:33 He explained the whole process to you.
06:35 I mean, there's nobody else out there
06:38 managing the game other than the quarterback.
06:40 I mean, probably whoever's calling the signals
06:42 on the defense, they're managing from that side of it.
06:45 But from the offensive side, you have to manage it.
06:48 You have to recognize when you got to get out of bad plays.
06:53 And I don't know.
06:55 You can call him whatever you want.
06:57 I'm just saying he's having a pretty good year.
07:00 So there was a stretch there.
07:03 I don't know if he was really healthy,
07:05 where they struggled for like three weeks in a row,
07:08 and then all of a sudden, he kicked back in again.
07:12 I don't go down there, and it's just a thought in my head
07:15 because he just didn't look the same
07:16 in that three-week span.
07:18 But then again, I look back on your career and go,
07:22 "Damn, there was a stretch, too,
07:23 or I didn't play very well."
07:25 So it looks like they're back on it,
07:29 and so it'll be fun to see.
07:31 Last thing before we get to what you guys
07:33 are doing with Guinness,
07:34 one word to describe Patrick Mahomes right now.
07:37 We'll start with Joe Montan.
07:39 Crazy.
07:41 Joe Burrow.
07:43 He's great.
07:44 Yeah.
07:45 He's crazy fun.
07:46 How about that?
07:47 Wait, isn't there a commercial that says --
07:49 Oh, never mind. I don't want to get into it.
07:53 There was a commercial that asked about where he says,
07:56 "In one word," and they say, "Four,"
07:58 and he said something else.
07:59 But crazy fun to watch.
08:00 I mean, you watch him, you don't know what to expect.
08:04 And he delivers the ball any way you want,
08:06 sidearm, underhand.
08:08 He's different.
08:09 He's a different quarterback.
08:12 Joe Burrow, is there any competitive part of you
08:13 that bothers you seeing him have that much success,
08:16 or do you watch it with admiration as a peer?
08:20 Look, we've had great battles over the last several years.
08:23 You know, we've seen each other
08:25 in the AFC Championship game twice,
08:27 and so we have a lot of respect for each other.
08:34 You know, if they win it,
08:36 we're -- next season is a new season.
08:40 We know that they're the team to beat every single year
08:42 because they're going to be, year in and year out,
08:45 a team that's going to compete for a Super Bowl.
08:47 So we want to be where they're at right now.
08:50 So we have to go and knock them off their throne.
08:53 All right, tell us about what you guys are doing
08:55 with Guinness around St. Patrick's Day,
08:56 which, of course, comes up after the Super Bowl.
08:59 Yeah, in March, we've partnered together,
09:03 and we're going to work with my foundation
09:05 to combat food insecurity in Cincinnati.
09:07 We're excited about that.
09:09 My parents are involved in the foundation side,
09:12 and so the fact that, you know,
09:14 I kind of get to mesh those two worlds together
09:17 is exciting for me.
09:18 I think it'll help a lot of people.
09:20 This -- it means a lot to me,
09:22 and so when Guinness came to me with the idea,
09:25 I was excited about it.
09:27 You know, it's going to help a lot of people,
09:29 and we're going to continue to do things like that
09:31 going forward.
09:34 This will be my fourth -- excuse me --
09:40 St. Patrick's Day with Guinness,
09:42 and the thing we both love about them
09:44 is what they do to help the communities they work in.
09:48 Actually, next weekend, I'll be in Baltimore
09:52 at the Open Gate Brewery, which is the first brewery --
09:57 actually, it's open now.
09:58 It's been opened here in the United States by Guinness,
10:01 and we'll be doing some local promotions there
10:05 and doing some --
10:06 one of the give-back programs there as well.
10:08 So it's great to be a partner with them
10:11 because they think so much about responsibility, too,
10:16 when it comes to drinking, but also the give-back program.
10:21 And they're great to be a partner with.
10:25 -Well, it was great to have a chance
10:27 to catch up with you guys.
10:28 Of course, legendary Joe Montana,
10:30 on a current NFL great, Joe Burrow.
10:32 Appreciate the time, guys.

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