The king of the Queen City, Joe Burrow initially sounded reluctant about going to Cincinnati.
Long before he saved the worst franchise in North American sports, Joe Burrow sat in a chair at the Fort Worth Club and didn't commit to an answer because he knew exactly what he was doing and what he was saying.
He was 23 and coming off a perfect season at LSU and been exposed to big-time college football for five years between his time at LSU and Ohio State.
By the time he arrived in Fort Worth for the 2020 Davey O'Brien award ceremony, he had been coached up by his agent and pros who knew the game.
Plus, Joe Burrow is smart.
The Cincinnati Bengals had the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and everything said they would use it on Burrow.
There was a history of top college quarterbacks leveraging away from certain teams, famously John Elway in 1983, and Eli Manning in 2004.
It made sense if Burrow wanted no part of the Bengals.
On the morning of Feb. 17, 2020, Burrow was in the Fort Worth Club and spoke to the Star-Telegram's Drew Davison and me.
Burrow was comfortable, polite, bright and engaging.
I asked Burrow if he would go to Cincinnati if the Bengals picked him first.
"Look, this is a long process, right?" he said. "They have their process that they have to go through, and so I am blessed to be in the position I'm in. If they select me, they select me, I'm going to do everything in my power to be the best football player I can be."
He did not say yes. So I told him that answer could be translated either way. I handed him an out to be specific. He was not.
"It's a long process in the next couple of months," he said. "We have the combine. We have pro days. There is a long time 'til the draft. There is a lot of information in a lot of different places. A lot of people saying a lot of things. I'm just focused on training right now."
Later in the day, before the award ceremony, former NFL quarterback Steve Bartowski said Burrow should "pull an Eli Manning" and force his way out from the Bengals. Bartkowski went so far as to tell Burrow's family just that.
"I might've offended them by telling them that, if it's the Bengals, I think I'd pull an Eli Manning on that one," Bartkowski told a small gathering of reporters, about an hour before the ceremony, when Burrow received the award as that season's top college quarterback.
In the 2004 NFL Draft, Manning engineered a draft day trade from the team that selected him, the San Diego Chargers, to the New York Giants.
Later, Burrow told Davison, "I do have leverage. They have their process and I have my process."
Burrow's response took off, and anyone who covered and followed the NFL wondered if he was trying to duck Cincy.
Less than a week later, at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Burrow was clear. He said he would go to the Bengals if they selected him with the first overall pick.
He told reporters at the combine that his answer in Fort Worth was only because he didn't "want to be presumptuous about the pick."
A spin that is clever, humble and endearing.
When Burrow didn't say yes or no to the initial question, he was doing what he was told, but as a kid who grew up in Ohio he knew what was coming.
Other than maybe Detroit, and now Washington, there has been no more difficult task in professional sports than winning in Cincy.
To Burrow's eternal credit, he is doing just that.
Despite suffering a torn ACL and MCL on Nov. 23 of his rookie year in 2020, he came back and now has the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday in Kansas City.
It's the first time the Bengals have been in an AFC title game since 1988.
The city of Cincinnati has not won a major title since the Reds won the World Series in 1991. The Bengals are 0-2 in the Super Bowl.
In his first full season, Burrow led the Bengals to an AFC North title.
In his first postseason, Burrow and the Bengals snapped their 31-year run without a playoff win, the longest streak for any major North American sports franchise.
They also won their first road playoff game ever.
The Bengals look like a team that will be relevant and competitive for years.
The irony is Joe Burrow initially sounded reluctant about going to Cincinnati, but he is now its new king.
