Joe Burrow didn't want to be QB when starting youth football

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Joe Burrow didn't want to be a quarterback.

When the Bengals star signal-caller started out in football as a third-grader, he reasoned that since there wasn't much passing at that level he'd get more action and contact as a running back or receiver.

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"I didn’t pick quarterback," Burrow said Thursday. "I got to my first pee-wee practice and the coach at the time, coach Sam Smathers — I still see him all the time when I go back home — he basically asked me if I wanted to be quarterback, and I said, ‘No, not really.’ But then he said ’Well, you’re gonna be quarterback. Too bad.’"

Smathers doesn't specifically recall forcing Burrow to be the quarterback in his Wing-T offense, but he might have. It was a no-brainer, though, especially after he found out that little Joey was the son of Jimmy Burrow, who was the then-defensive coordinator under Frank Solich at Ohio University.

"We had a couple other kids who were bigger and could play the position, but the knowledge and football IQ I noticed in him at that age was pretty amazing," said the 56-year-old Smathers, who lives across the street from the high school football field in Athens that has been renamed Joe Burrow Stadium. "Then I found out who his dad was. Coming from a football family like that, I can understand where he's getting it.

"He could remember the plays, the timing came easy with him, then we found out he could throw the ball really well," Smathers said. "That's basically how it started — he had a good football IQ even in third grade."

Good call. Burrow grew up to lead Athens High School — 2 1/2 hours east of Cincinnati — to a state