Joe Burrow's comments sound eerily familiar to Andrew Luck retirement speech

Jarrett Bailey

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Joe Burrow's comments sound eerily familiar to Andrew Luck retirement speech image

Joe Burrow has had a difficult three-year stretch. The superstar quarterback has suffered two major injuries that have cost him the majority of the last three seasons, and the effects of that are becoming evident.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Burrow was very honest about where his head was at.

"If I want to keep doing this, I have to have fun doing this," Burrow said via Charlie Clifford. "I have been through a lot. If it's not fun, then what am I doing it for? That is the mind set I am trying to bring to the table."

Burrow was then asked if he was frustrated.

"There are a lot of things going on right now," Burrow said. "A lot of things going on."

It didn't take long for many to notice the haunting similarities between Burrow's press conference and Andrew Luck's retirement speech. Burrow asked what the point was in continuing to play if the game stopped being fun, which mirrored what Luck said.

"I haven't been able to live the life I want to live," Luck said during his retirement announcement in 2019. "It's taken the joy out of this game... The only way forward for me is to remove myself from football."

The beginning of that quote also shadows comments from Burrow. He was asked if there were football related or personal things that he was referencing when saying that there was a lot going on.

"All of the above," Burrow replied.

The parallels between the two quarterbacks don't stop with quotes, though. Luck's career was marred by injuries. From 2015-17, he missed 26 games, including all of 2017. Since being drafted in 2020, Burrow has missed 21 games and has had two season-ending injuries. To narrow it down even further, Burrow has missed 15 games since 2023.

Missing practically an entire season's worth of games has to be a tough weight to shoulder, especially for a quarterback that has led his team to two AFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl when healthy. And while many fans and media alike have speculated that Justin Herbert could end up having an Andrew Luck-esc career due to the amount of hits he's taken, the Chargers star has never showed any sort of hints of stepping away. 

Whatever Burrow's future holds, the frustrations are evident and rational. There's only so much a person can take, both when it comes to injuries and the lack of winning. It's very possible that Burrow was just caught in the moment and that this goes nowhere beyond speculation and making connections that aren't there. It's also possible there are some very difficult conversations taking place behind the curtain in Cincinnati.

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Contributing Writer