Joe Burrow and Joe Montana Full Interview Pre-Super Bowl
Joe Burrow and Joe Montana Full Interview Pre-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.
02:31 And so how do you compare them?
02:35 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.
03:04 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?"
03:13 I 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, like, when I first got in the league,
03:27 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 has about where he says,
07:56 "In one word," and they say, "Four,"
07:58 and they 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.