It’s possible that endurance rather than skill has prevented Joe Burrow from playing like Tom Brady thus far. Whenever he seems to be making the Bengals a consistent contender, his body fails him.
A sprained MCL in the Super Bowl, a ruptured ACL and MCL that ended his first season, and the wrist injury that ended 2023 are just a few of the setbacks Burrow has experienced. He will now miss three months due to a turf toe injury sustained in Week 2 against the Jaguars.
This week, Julian Edelman, Brady’s longtime Patriots colleague, addressed the ongoing loop that renders comparisons to Brady meaningless.
Edelman told Colin Cowherd that although the GOAT did get hurt, the public only ever heard about the serious ones. According to Edelman: “Tom played through some stuff that he just wouldn’t [reveal to the public]… There were times where he had a broken foot, no one knew about it, that he played with broken ribs. He just didn’t really publicize it,”
“I tell you one thing that Tom always did, he always thought about his body. He had Alex Guerrero around him 24/7. So if he’s subconsciously thinking about this all the time, it translates into your game,”
However, as the former Patriots wide receiver highlighted, Brady’s resilience was not the only factor that kept him healthy. It all came down to preparation.
As crucial as the work he did off the field, he also considered Brady’s unwavering emphasis on staying out of danger zones, slipping away from pressure, and never hanging around in “high-risk areas.”
According to Edelman, this is what sets Brady apart from Joe Burrow because the Bengals quarterback frequently has no option but to stand in collapsing pockets.
However, the three-time Super Bowl champion considered the Bengals as a whole and didn’t only single out Burrow:
