It wasn't always smooth sailing for Joe Burrow.
Before last season, the Cincinnati Bengals gave Burrow a five-year, $275 million contract extension, making him the highest-paid player in football at the time.
The 27-year-old was the first overall pick in the 2020 draft by the Bengals after leading the 2019 LSU Tigers to a national championship.
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Buckeyes' Joe Burrow warms up before a game against the Maryland Terrapins at Ohio Stadium on Oct. 7, 2017, in Columbus. (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)
Before Burrow threw for 60 touchdowns and more than 5,600 yards en route to winning the Heisman Trophy for LSU, he began his college career at Ohio State.
The quarterback made it look easy on the field at LSU at times, but at Ohio State he rarely saw the field.
Over the course of two seasons with the Buckeyes, Burrow appeared in just 11 games and completed 29 of 39 passes for 287 yards and two touchdowns. He began to doubt himself.
“Yeah, at Ohio State I was definitely questioning myself because I was like, 'I'm working really hard in the gym, I'm playing really well in practice,' and I felt like nobody was noticing that or nobody was seeing the improvement or how I was playing in practice,” Burrow said in a recent appearance on “The Pivot.”
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Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback Joe Burrow signals during the Rutgers Scarlet Knights game on September 30, 2017, at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
“I was like, 'Do I have a skewed view of myself and how I'm playing or what kind of quarterback I am? ' Those three and a half years were definitely tough. I had so much confidence in the work I was doing off the field and the growth I was making, but I felt like not a lot of people had confidence in me at that time.”
“All I had, as we talked about before, was the belief in myself and that the work I was putting in would eventually come to light and pay off, and thank God it did.”
Once Burrow arrived at LSU, it seemed the biggest difficulty he faced on the Bayou was with the lingo.
“For the first two or three months I had no idea what everyone was saying, so I was just like, 'Yeah, you know.' I had no idea.”
Burrow's college success has carried over to the NFL.
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LSU Tigers' Joe Burrow celebrates against the Clemson Tigers during the College Football Playoff National Championship game on Jan. 13, 2020, in New Orleans. (Gus Stark/LSU/University Images via Getty Images)
After tearing his ACL in his rookie year, Burrow led the Bengals to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Los Angeles Rams in his second season. The following season, he led the Bengals to the AFC Championship, where they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
The Pro Bowler tore a ligament in his right wrist last season during a Week 11 game against the Baltimore Ravens, ending his season. Burrow has been a full participant this training camp.
The Bengals will host the New England Patriots to open their season on September 8 at 1 p.m. ET.
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