A Thanksgiving Day win is one of those bucket list items for an NFL quarterback, and the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow got his first one on Thursday, November 27, against the Baltimore Ravens.
While Burrow, 28, was certainly grateful for the win, he just didn’t want to take part in the celebratory tradition of eating turkey on the sideline after the game.
“I didn’t touch it. I didn’t touch it,” Burrow, 28, told reporters in his postgame press conference. “I don’t know who made it, I don’t know where they made it. I’m good. I had a little bit of pepper. I was good with the pepper.”
Though he didn’t touch the turkey, Burrow had every reason to celebrate. Not only did the Bengals win the game, 32-14, earning their first victory in over a month, but it was his first game since Week 2. Burrow has missed Cincinnati’s last nine games with a turf toe injury and returned just in time to keep the team’s faint playoff hopes alive.
Burrow’s self-imposed dietary restrictions shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed his career closely. Last offseason, the two-time Comeback Player of the Year put on 10 pounds of muscle, which he credited to eating better. His new diet came as a result of a 2023 season in which he played only 10 games, dealing with multiple injuries throughout.
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“I’m eating more, I’m more dialed as far as nutrition and food schedule and eating when I need to so that’s been a big area of emphasis for me and I’ve seen the results,” Burrow said in a 2024 story for Bengals.com.
“We wanted things that didn’t have him too full … That he wasn’t filling up too much on veggies first and missing out on the things of high caloric value and the things he needed to repair and restore,” his trainer Dak Notestine explained. “Just organizing things a little better. Having a better overall plan for what a week entails and what he needs calorically. It’s not simply, ‘Here’s a plate, just re-create this.’”
On Thanksgiving Day, he came up big when it mattered. After a tough first half for both teams, Burrow threw for two touchdowns in the third quarter as the Cincinnati defense kept the Ravens quiet.
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“There’s no better feeling than that — putting in work for a long time and going out and it paying off,” Burrow said postgame.
“The whole first half, my feet were a little antsy back there,” he added. “In the second half, I felt a lot more comfortable [and] started putting them where I wanted to.”
Burrow’s successful return came a little more than two weeks after he opened up about the mental toll that has come from trying to rebound from injury yet again.
“You try to do what you can and just grind by yourself in the weight room and in the training room when trying to get right,” he told reporters in a November 10 press conference. “There’s not much more you can do. You’re not out there with the guys, you’re not at practice, so returning? from injury is pretty lonely.”
The Bengals’ next game is on Sunday, December 7, on the road against the Buffalo Bills.
