Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow took the accountability angle Sunday in the wake of his team’s season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Plenty went wrong in Burrow’s debut but the No. 1 pick was more than willing to throw it all on himself instead of passing off blame while chatting with the media.
He told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com, for example, he was off-target on a throw to A.J. Green and made a silly mistake on an attempted pitch that got intercepted.
“I can’t miss that throw to A.J. A high schooler can make that throw,” Burrow said. “And I can’t throw the ball right to Melvin Ingram when we’re in scoring range, so it was a tough way to lose.”
And during the game, John Ross took plenty of heat when a would-be touchdown grazed off his hands and fell incomplete.
Burrow puts that one on himself too.
“The way I see it, I overthrew him. I’ve got to put it on his chest,” Burrow said. “I’ll watch the film and see what happened, but I’ve got to make a better throw.”
Burrow isn’t saying anything too shocking given how the game unfolded. His team had multiple chances to put away the Chargers and shouldn’t have needed to win on a late flag A.J. is mad about or a freaky missed field goal.
Still, it has to be nice for fans and teammates alike to hear Burrow take this leadership approach. He had some serious rookie growing pains clearly, but that march down the field to put his team in a position to win with just three minutes left is the definition of encouraging — Burrow’s progressing on the field and saying the right things off it, too.
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