Joe Burrow expected success at LSU, but never thought he'd be a first round pick in the NFL Draft

The Bengals are going to take Joe Burrow with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft on Thursday night.

Burrow just had one of the best seasons in college football history. He led the nation in passing yards (5,671), touchdown passes (60) and completion percentage (76.3). The run ended with Burrow winning the Heisman Trophy and LSU finishing 15-0, en route to its' first National Championship since 2007.

Burrow wasn't surprised by the success he had in his senior season, but he never expected to be a first round pick.

“Absolutely not,” he told Albert Breer. “I knew that I was gonna play really well my senior year. And I was going into it thinking I was one of the best guys in the country. But I know what recruiting is, and I know how the draft is. It’s always interesting seeing where people go and seeing who ends up panning out. So I knew I had a chance to be a really good pro. But I didn’t think I could do anything to get myself up to the No. 1 pick in the draft.

“I expected to have the kind of season that I had. But I didn’t expect for it to propel me to the No. 1 pick. I thought I was gonna go third, fourth round.”

Burrow has drawn comparisons to Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Kurt Warner during the pre-draft process.

The Bengals fell in love with him before the combine, but he impressed them during their in-person interview. Since then, the Bengals have maxed out their weekly meeting time with Burrow.

They love his attitude and his demeanor. They believe he's an ascending player that has the desire to get better everyday.

"The more he played the more the more he got into that rhythm and feel," Bengals Director of Player Personnel Duke Tobin said last week. "Certainly the coaching down there brought him along quickly. Their schematics were great. I think the way that he was brought in by his teammates was great. His leadership down there was great. When those things all come together your play on the field tends to build and be ever-improving. So, with him, the more he played the better he got which is a good sign."

Burrow was forced to transfer from Ohio State after losing the competition for the starting job to Dwayne Haskins. Burrow suffered multiple injuries, including a broken wrist that all but ended his chances of starting for the Buckeyes.

“I’d never been injured in my life. And I separated my shoulder, I sprained my ankle really bad and then I broke my hand at the end of fall camp,” Burrow said. “And I just kind of took that as a sign that it just wasn’t going to happen for me there.”

Burrow battled with Haskins in the spring, but it wasn't enough to win the job and he was forced to transfer.

“I know for a fact that a lot of people felt like Joe won the job,” Joe’s father, Jimmy told Breer. “But as a coach, you have to sometimes go with a gut feeling and make decisions that aren’t popular maybe with some parts of the team or the coaching staff, and that’s what they did. You can’t say it was wrong, because of the things that they accomplished after Joe left.”

The move worked out for everyone. Burrow went 25-3 as a starter at LSU. He didn't 'wow' anyone as a junior, finishing with 16 touchdowns and five interceptions. He completed just 57.8 percent of his passes. The jump he made from his junior to his senior seasons has some concerned about his NFL outlook. Not being at LSU in the spring had to have impacted his performance in 2018.

“I think people really underestimate the power of just wanting to do it, and hard work, and competitive spirit, and preparation,” Burrow said. “People get enamored with how the ball spins out of his hand, and how hard or how much is on the ball when it comes out, and how fast it gets to the receiver when you throw it. And they really underestimate all the little things that go into it.”

Burrow thinks about his doubters regularly. He wasn’t invited to the Elite 11 high school quarterback all-star showcase. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and two brothers at Nebraska, but they didn’t show serious interest in him when he was coming out of high school. They passed on him a second time when he transferred from Ohio State.

“There’s a commonality in a lot of the great quarterbacks in the league, that they have the chip on their shoulder—from something,” Burrow said. “Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson—I mean, they all have something that got them to have a little chip on their shoulder, that makes you continue to work really, really hard. I mean, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’d like to say I’d have had the same mindset if I was a five-star. But who knows? It’s tough to tell.”

Burrow may not be the most athletic quarterback or have the biggest arm, but he wants to be the hardest worker. His senior year at LSU looked easy at times because of the work he put in behind the scenes. Burrow knew what the defense was going to do before they did it. He put in the time and it paid off. He's hoping for similar results in the NFL.

“I know that something I’m always scared of, that old saying, there’s always someone out there that’s getting up earlier and working harder,” Burrow said. “That’s something that I’ve always been kind of fearful of, that someone’s out there working harder than me.”