ESPN Analyst Kirk Herbstreit Compares LSU Football's Joe Burrow to Peyton Manning, Tom Brady
Joe Burrow's 2019 season was a reminder of how fit is everything. After a so-so junior season with the Tigers that resulted in a Fiesta Bowl win, the switch to the spread offense proved to be the difference maker in LSU's undefeated quest for a national championship.
One of Burrow's early cheerleaders a season ago was ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who saw the early potential of the Tigers revamped offense as he watched from the commentator booth in a 43-37 win over Texas in the second week of the season.
"I started to run out of things to say," Herbstreit said while making an appearance on "Move the Sticks Joe Burrow 360" special. "It's like when Tiger Woods was in his prime, really good. I've covered some great players doing this for a long time, but it was a perfect storm. The combination of Joe Brady bringing that Saints system to Baton Rouge. You have that element. You have a veteran fifth-year quarterback who is a gym rat when it comes to preparation.”
That game, that throw sparked a season for the ages with Burrow throwing for 5,671 yards and an FBS record 60 touchdowns. And if Herbstreit's latest comments are any indication, Burrow is in store for quite the professional career as well.
In that same interview talking about the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner, Herbstreit compared Burrow's prep work and football IQ to that of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
"I'm not putting a Tom Brady label on him, but a Peyton Manning, Tom Brady type," Herbstreit said. "He's at the facility preparing on Sunday. He just won by 40 yesterday and, on Sunday, he's there for eight hours looking at the next game. He's like a coach. He was a coach that played quarterback in his fifth year. He knew the answers to every question."
It's not the first time Burrow has been compared to arguably the two greatest quarterbacks of all time. When the comparisons initially started coming about during the NFL Combine, Burrow politely asked to not be compared to Manning and Brady.
"Please don't compare me to the best player of all time," Burrow said at the combine. "Let me do my own thing. Don't do that to me. Please."
In addition to Herbstreit, all indications out of Cincinnati are that Burrow has taken to the playbook quite well. In fact in some instances the coaching staff has asked him to slow down a bit.
“Sometimes he would say things early on and I’d say, we are not talking about that right now, let’s just get through what we need to get through here and then we can revisit that later," offensive coordinator Brian Callahan told the Athletic writer Paul Dehner. “We will probably answer that question you have in a day or two days or three days because we are not there yet. I know you are, but we’re not.”
Whether Burrow can start his quest of proving Herbstreit right is still to be determined. The NFL, at this moment, plans on starting training camp as scheduled on July 28.
During a recent appearance on "Good Morning America," Burrow said he's "in the best shape of his life but is completely “in the dark” about what a 2020 season will look like.
"Everybody around the league is preparing like business as usual, like we’re going to be reporting in a couple weeks and getting ready to play," Burrow said. "I'm in the dark just like everybody else. I can't imagine there would be fans in the stands at the beginning. Maybe a few, but I'm preparing like I'm going to be the starting quarterback with 100,000 fans in the stands and I'm going to be ready to go."
