Bengals QB Joe Burrow triumphs over injury vs. Ravens - ESPN

CINCINNATI — There were a couple of things on Joe Burrow's mind in the hours leading up to a surgery that had many unknowns.

One of them was whether all passengers on airplanes had parachutes. When Jake Browning, the Cincinnati Bengals' backup quarterback behind Burrow, texted Burrow good luck ahead of a wrist surgery last November, Burrow replied with the question about evacuation methods for an emergency landing.

«That's just how he is,» Bengals receiver and longtime teammate Ja'Marr Chase said last December. «He's just never thinking about 'in the moment.' He's thinking about something else.»

But the other thought on his mind was more pressing. As someone who had a surgery during his rookie year in 2020, when he tore ligaments in his right knee, Burrow knew one of the toughest parts wasn't going under the knife but the wait to start the recovery process.

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«You're just excited to get that process going,» Burrow told ESPN. «Because it doesn't start until surgery happens. Sometimes a month, sometimes six weeks after surgery. Those weeks are always tough because you know what's coming up, and it hasn't started yet.»

On Thursday, Burrow will suit up under nearly identical circumstances to when he sustained the injury last season — a Thursday night contest on the road against the Baltimore Ravens. On that night last November, Burrow was tackled and ruptured a wrist ligament in his throwing hand. The specific injury was one that no NFL quarterback is known to have experienced. His return has been one that not everyone