Jake Browning was nearly out of the league, until Joe Burrow recalibrated his thinking about the QB position.
Though they exist at vastly different stages of their careers, Cincinnati Bengals QBs Joe Burrow and Jake Browning connect over the same concern -- finding out what it takes to survive the stressful world of NFL quarterbacking. Although he primarily covers the NFL, his assignments also have taken him to the Athens Olympics, the World Series, the NCAA tournament and the NHL and NBA playoffs.
In 2021, the Vikings told Browning to wait at a hotel for a call, all but offering a role of some sort for him. He had been with the Vikings almost three years, all on the practice squad, zero regular-season appearances, and shaky preseason play. Still, Browning was accustomed to living in ambiguity. He sat at the hotel for hours, not knowing if he'd had a job or not. Finally, his agent called with news that the Vikings were moving on.
"Keep talking to me on the sideline," Burrow said."Nobody really likes to talk to me during the game. They kind of want me to just do my own thing. But it's helpful." His rise has since been so steep -- Heisman, national championship, consensus first overall pick, Super Bowl appearance in his second year, foil to the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, held back only by injuries -- that it's tempting to see his gifts as preternatural. But Browning doesn't think so. He knows better. Browning has studied quarterbacks enough to conclude that most of them are driven by deep scars. It's how Browning made sense of his own career.
TOP: Burrow and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes following a Bengals victory on Dec. 4, 2022. At the combine, Browning polished a pitch to teams, rooted in self-awareness: that he saw the same deficiencies as teams did and he was working his ass off to correct them. If GMs compared his all-arm release in college to its cleaner version after only a few months of work, they would see improvement -- and upside.No teams flew him in for a visit. No teams interviewed him outside of the combine.
Taylor knew what Browning was thinking: If that pass had been intercepted, it could kill his career. That's what Taylor thought in 2005, when he was a struggling junior quarterback at Nebraska, conditioned to believe that if something bad happened, it was always on the quarterback. He had been practicing a similar timing route and held the ball to account for the receiver.
Then, last July, Burrow strained his calf and Browning took first-team reps."I could feel my confidence growing every week," he says. Burrow returned for the regular season, but Browning was suddenly a snap away. He had always spent the final moments before games worrying, a fear that he had to prepare twice as hard as others just to play average. He had met with a psychologist and practiced visualization.
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