Joe Burrow Has Already Learned That Taking Hits In The NFL Is Actually Bad

That's what I like to call "learning on the fly," a key quality you want out of a franchise quarterback. A lot of people think it's admirable for a quarterback to have a short term memory. Forget what has happened, just grip and rip with nary a care for the Ghost of Christmas Past a la Brett Favre. Me? I like a guy who can be a sponge. Soak up as much knowledge and information as possible en route to building a better, stronger and smarter version of oneself every single week. For instance: taking bone crushing hits from the strongest athletes in the world = bad. Being able to remember your name is and not have your brain turned into turtle soup = good. Joey Burrow didn't know that before taking this hit.

Not that there was anything he could do about that hit in particular, but that's another aspect of learning on the fly. Some hits are unavoidable. It's the NFL, everything happens so quickly some shit is going to go awry from time to time to no fault of your own. Which is why it's extremely ideal to not take hits when you absolutely do not have to. Attempting to gain ONE extra yard fighting through contact in a meaningless game against the Jaguars? Yeah, don't do that. Like when Jimmy G decided to try and turn it up field rather than simply step out of bounds, instantly resulting in a non-contact torn ACL. Work smarter, not harder. That's the American way.