NEW ORLEANS _ Joe Burrow threw the final strike of his record-breaking season here Thursday night when he became the first player in history to win the Associated Press NFL Comeback Player of the Year for the second time with the same team.

Burrow emerged from 2023 wrist surgery to lead the league in touchdown passes and passing yards and then accepted the award at the nationally televised NFL Honors ceremony in the Saenger Theatre. That's a Burrow go route to Ja’Marr Chase away from where they completed LSU's undefeated national championship season at the Caesar's Superdome five years ago.

"Obviously, a success," said Matt Summers, the club's director of sports medicine and head athletic trainer, of Burrow's road back.

"There's no question that if anyone is going to come back from something that you don't see very often in this game, it's going to be Joe Burrow based off his work ethic and how he attacks every day. He's got that instinct about him that he's going to win the day."

It also marked the second NFL Comeback award for Nick Cosgray, the Bengals director of rehab and performance who helped guide Burrow through his recovery from ACL surgery in 2020 as he returned the next season to win the award and lead the Bengals to the Super Bowl.

Summers and Cosgray and a cadre of trainers worked in conjunction with the staff of head strength and conditioning coach Joey Boese, as well as a nutritionist, and others. If it takes a village, Burrow had Paycor Stadium. But he drove it all.

"He attacks it like he does everything related to football," Cosgray says. "The great part about Joe is once he's got all the information and understands you've got his best interests at heart, he'll put all his trust in you and do everything you ask him to do and more than you ask him to do."

Cosgray gained his trust during the ACL comeback of early 2021 when Burrow decided to rehab at Paycor Stadium, and they used the same simple strategy of clarity and communication this time.

"The way I always approach everything is an injury is an injury. There are certain phases of the healing process you have to follow no matter what it is and that's what we did," Cosgray says.

"We really focused on getting his motion back, which was the most important thing. From there it's get your strength back and regain your function."

Cosgray said he had a good feeling early in the process back in March when Burrow approached a football for the first time.

"He picked it up and just threw it," Cosgray said. "It came out of his hand. It spun. Had a spiral. At that moment, I thought it was going to be OK."

When Burrow went on from that first toss to complete 70.6% of his passes, he joined Drew Brees as the only quarterback with multiple 70% seasons. And he said after the last game that he can get better.

"I threw it well this year. I still think I can throw it way better," said Burrow after the win in Pittsburgh. "Early in the season, you're still getting a feel for how that wrist is feeling. You're breaking up scar tissue. You're doing a lot of different things to help it, and it gets better as the season goes.

"So I expect next year to be better. That's how it was with my knee. That's how ligament injuries typically go. I'm expecting to grind this off-season and take a jump next year."

It seems Burrow even takes his swag into the training room.

"That's his demeanor," Summers said. "I talk to my kids about that all the time. That swag is confidence. When you go in and you're confident in what you're doing. In the rehab process, that's being confident in working the plan. The answer is yes, there are times there are challenges and struggles. But that's being cool, right? He handled all that well."

Cosgray says the Burrow you see on Sundays is the same Burrow you see in the rehab gym. Even-keel. Impassive. Maybe a flash of frustration. But just a flash. He simmers with intensity and some days they may not exchange words for half an hour as they attack the plan.

"He came up to me around the one-year mark," Cosgray says of the Nov. 16 anniversary, "and he said, 'Hey, you're right. It's been about a year, and I really don't think about it much anymore."

Cosgray isn't thinking about it anymore, either. His first assignment in Cincinnati, Carson Palmer's ACL in 2006, could have been a Comeback, but it was eclipsed by Chad Pennington's rotator cuff. Palmer lost 12 games to an elbow injury in 2008 and could have gotten the '09 Comeback when he led the Bengals to an AFC North sweep. But nobody was beating Tom Brady's ACL that year.

Cosgray was the point man in Leon Hall's two Achilles' rehabs in 2011 and 2013, and Hall could have been the Comeback in 2012 as a top 20 Pro Football Focus cornerback and top six slot cornerback who had pick-sixes in a playoff clincher and Wild Card Game.

But who is going to beat Peyton Manning in an election?

Burrow has been a no-brainer twice. For the last time, Cosgray says:

"You could definitely say that."