My recent post on 1/13 highlighted six key areas to watch Joe Burrow on the big stage Monday night. Did Joe answer the mail on all of these….let’s find out:
#1: Ability to extend plays in the pocket – YES; Burrow was under pressure mostly in the first half and his adjustments when the heat came showed his mobility and abilities to escape and still make plays.
#2: Finding the second and third options – YES; Burrow spread the ball around and found Jefferson and Chase on 9 occasions. Jefferson had the majority of the yards but Thaddeus Moss also finished with 2 TDs. In total Burrow found 5 receivers throughout the night.
#3: Making plays with his feet – YES; Burrow finished with 58 yards and a rushing TD. Not bad for a strong-armed and accurate QB. Likewise Trevor Lawrence ran for 49 yards and a TD and is considered a dual-threat.
#4: Playing down – YES; This was my biggest concern since LSU blew teams out all year. In the first quarter LSU struggled and it was not until the end of the second quarter did Burrow start engineering a comeback and making adjustments to those plays that were not working. He is going to be down a lot as a Bengal, this was the most positive thing I saw all night.
#5: Answering the big question – MAYBE; While this did not come up Twitter exploded that his next step will be changing stripes to the Bengals. Another tweet bashed Skyline chili and in an interview he said that he hated it. In Cincinnati those are fighting words but he is not from there really so he gets a one-time pass. If he comes out pro Gold Star we need to engineer a trade for Johnny Manziel from drug rehab.
#6: Do not force the ball – YES; Clean sheet with no turnovers and he kept care of the ball all night. He finished with a 63.3% completion rate…so yeah I would say he made wise choices.
Light ’em up boys, we have a legit QB coming our way. Don’t screw this one up Mikey!