A bigger, wiser, and more cautious Joe Burrow emerged Tuesday from one of his relentlessly calculated offseasons.
The beefier Burrow wouldn't say what he weighs and how much he wants to weigh this season. But, as he always does in a press conference, he carefully weighed his words that always carry a lot of weight as the NFL's all-time completion percentage leader.
"I'm going to be smart about it. If I need a break, I need a break," said Burrow after he put his surgically repaired wrist through another offseason practice session. "The wrist maybe is going to hurt sometimes and I'm going to be honest with myself about how my body's feeling, maybe a little more cautious than I have been in years past.
"That's kind of been something that's been on my mind for the last couple of months. I'm getting better at that. It's always a challenge to not push yourself in that way, but I'm growing and learning every year, trying to be a pro and trying to figure out how to best be available for my team."
No one challenges his body more than Burrow. Four months ago, the same day the Jake Browning Bengals beat Cleveland in the 2023 finale, an unsurprised Dak Notestine received Burrow's text:
"What's the schedule?"
Notestine, the director of performance at Black Sheep Performance in suburban Cincinnati, is Burrow's trainer who has been with him so long that he has taken him from adolescence to Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year. He knew the annual tweaking and tugging would continue when they sat down for the annual State of Joe. Nutrition fed the discussion.
"We get something on paper. … Each year it's a little bit of a different story," Notestine said Tuesday. "He's so dialed. He knows what works and what hasn't. We make tweaks here and there and hopefully we'll see the end product being all the little changes we made.
"Certainly, he has taken it upon himself to dial in his nutrition. We want him to be as healthy as he possibly can. It's definitely something we've worked hard on so far this offseason and hammer down."
When Burrow sent that text, it wasn't lost on him that he's spent swaths of his four NFL seasons overcoming injuries.
"I'm growing and learning how to handle my body. I think that's a continued process of learning," Burrow said. "When to push through something that you think maybe might be there and another day, you might not be feeling great and this muscle's a little tight and like, 'Hey, we've got to take it easy today.' So that's something that I'm continuing to learn. I think that's part of growing as a player and as a pro and it's a continued process day-in and day-out."
One of the things Burrow has apparently learned about his body is that he wanted to change what he put into his perpetually angular 6-4 frame and when.
"I'm eating more, I'm more dialed as far as nutrition and food schedule and eating when I need to so that's been a big area of emphasis for me and I've seen the results," Burrow said.
"We're bigger. Definitely bigger. We'll see where I'm at at the end of the offseason. I feel good about where my body is right now. I'm going to continue to get stronger and bigger throughout the offseason and just play it by ear, depending on how I feel. Like I said, I'm in a good spot right now. I'm really strong, bigger than I was. We're going to continue to eat right, lift and go through my routine and see where I'm at."
All of this is no surprise to the other strength guru who has Burrow's ear. Joey Boese, Bengals head strength and conditioning coach. For four springs now Burrow has returned to him always looking crisper or sharper in some category he has decided to prioritize.
"He's always working on something. That's what makes him different. Always working on his craft," Boese said. "Best I've ever seen as far as being dialed into his preparation."
Or as Burrow said, "I'm addicted to getting better."
Boese loves where Burrow is when it comes to his speed and movements, as well as his strength. He can see the results of the diet.
"Nutrition is a humungous part of it. Recovery. Muscle mass. Body composition. You name it," Boese said. "Nutrition is a big part of maintaining the same weight during the season that you had coming into training camp. It's a hard thing to do."
The Seamless Joe Diet? Notestine says it's as much about timing as it is food.
"We wanted things that didn't have him too full … That he wasn't filling up too much on veggies first and missing out on the things of high caloric value and the things he needed to repair and restore," Notestine said. "Just organizing things a little better. Having a better overall plan for what a week entails and what he needs calorically. It's not simply, 'Here's a plate, just re-create this.'
"We want to make it so he can do it over and over again and not have any guesswork. That's very much how he operates."
No question Burrow puts in the painstaking nuts-and-bolts work. "I think we're getting to the point where we're making sure he's not working too hard," Boese said. Notestine says he's invested "for this team and this city." The long haul.
Will the Joe Burrow Diet cushion those AFC body shots?
"I don't know. That's what we're going to find out. That's kind of a work in progress of somebody's career," said Burrow, still tweaking the craft. "You're always growing and learning and I'm trying something new this year, so we'll see how I feel when the season rolls around, when camp rolls around, when we're on the field every day. But I don't know the answer to that. We're going to find out."
