When Burrow went on from that first toss to complete 70.6% of his passes, he joined Drew Brees as the only quarterback with multiple 70% seasons. And he said after the last game that he can get better.
“I threw it well this year. I still think I can throw it way better,” said Burrow after the win in Pittsburgh. “Early in the season, you’re still getting a feel for how that wrist is feeling. You’re breaking up scar tissue. You’re doing a lot of different things to help it, and it gets better as the season goes.
“So I expect next year to be better. That’s how it was with my knee. That’s how ligament injuries typically go. I’m expecting to grind this off-season and take a jump next year.”
It seems Burrow even takes his swag into the training room.
“That’s his demeanor,” Summers said. “I talk to my kids about that all the time. That swag is confidence. When you go in and you’re confident in what you’re doing. In the rehab process, that’s being confident in working the plan. The answer is yes, there are times there are challenges and struggles. But that’s being cool, right? He handled all that well.”
Cosgray says the Burrow you see on Sundays is the same Burrow you see in the rehab gym. Even-keel. Impassive. Maybe a flash of frustration. But just a flash. He simmers with intensity and some days they may not exchange words for half an hour as they attack the plan.
“He came up to me around the one-year mark,” Cosgray says of the Nov. 16 anniversary, “and he said, ‘Hey, you’re right. It’s been about a year, and I really don’t think about it much anymore.”
Cosgray isn’t thinking about it anymore, either. His first assignment in Cincinnati, Carson Palmer’s ACL in 2006, could have been a Comeback, but it was eclipsed by Chad Pennington’s rotator cuff. Palmer lost 12 games to an elbow injury in 2008 and could have gotten the ’09 Comeback when he led the Bengals to an AFC North sweep. But nobody was beating Tom Brady’s ACL that year.
Cosgray was the point man in Leon Hall’s two Achilles’ rehabs in 2011 and 2013, and Hall could have been the Comeback in 2012 as a top 20 Pro Football Focus cornerback and top six slot cornerback who had pick-sixes in a playoff clincher and Wild Card Game.
But who is going to beat Peyton Manning in an election?
Burrow has been a no-brainer twice. For the last time, Cosgray says:
“You could definitely say that.”
