How has chess influenced Joe Burrow’s game as a Bengals quarterback?

Throughout Cincinnati’s best season in three decades, chess hasn’t been far from the second-year quarterback’s mind.

CINCINNATI — The quarterback of the Cincinnati BengalsJoe Burrow, eyed the opposition, thought about his next move, and got ready to attack.

The execution required barely lifting a finger. With the corner of the Bengals, Chidobe Awuzie, sitting across from him in the dressing room, Burrow he made a fianchetto, a chess maneuver in which one repositions one’s pieces to free a bishop for a diagonal attack.

Yes, the quarterback who has switched to the franchise that treasures the challenge of studying and exploiting football defenses also enjoys chess.

“Chess is fun,” he explained. Burrow at a January 2021 press conference. “It’s very strategic, and you have to plan all your moves. That calls me.”

Throughout his life, the interest of Burrow in chess it has been turned on, and then confirmed, during times when it was forced to stay inside.

Burrow traced his first interest in the game back to his childhood in southeastern Ohio, when the weather forced her elementary school to have recess indoors.

“It was too cold and we played chess,” he recalled Burrow.

Burrow, who will travel to measure himself against the Tennessee Titans in a match of the Divisional Round of the AFC on Saturday (4:30 pm ET), he picked it up during isolation at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and began playing more around the time he suffered a season-ending left knee injury that November.

But, his interest reached a new level in the current campaign. Since training camp, a brown and white board has been kept on top of a small cart, as part of the interior decoration of the locker room. Burrow he initially played most of his games against Thaddeus Moss, a tight end on the practice squad who was a teammate of Burrow in LSU.

awuzie, an avid chess player, too, soon noticed. When i was in the University of Colorado, Awuzie and some friends started playing chess on their laptops as a way to pass the time during a business class.

awuzie began to amuse himself with chess games between Burrow Y Moss, offering subtle comments to indicate that he was also playing. When awuzie said to Burrow that he was ready for a game, things did not go well for the quarterback.

“I had to improve a bit,” he admitted. Burrow.

After his initial victory, awuzie suggested to Burrow Y Moss download the Chess.com app as a way to improve.

Burrow took the advice. In a rematch a couple of weeks later, awuzie he immediately noticed a more calculated strategy regarding their first confrontation. Even if Burrow lost again, the way the quarterback played the opening and middle part of the game impressed awuzie.

“Its closure needs a little work,” he said. awuzie. “But he was making the right moves.”

In some ways, the decision-making ability and ability to recognize patterns that are required in chess are the same ones you have used Burrow to transform the Bengals from one of the worst franchises in the NFL to a contender AFC in just two years.

Football coaches often compare their sport to chess, when sides try opposing schemes throughout a game.

“You always try to play the game of cat and mouse with the one who calls the plays [del rival]”, said the defensive coordinator of the Bengals, Lou Anarumo, after the Bengals beat the Kansas City Chiefs on January 2. “You try to keep them off balance, like a game of chess against their quarterback.”

John Hartmann, editor of Chess Life, the official publication of the United States Chess Federation, said that as one begins to understand the game better, players begin to read the board to plan their moves.

And, although not all American football players are good chess players, awuzie said that his two games against Burrow they did reveal something about him as a quarterback.

“The fact that he plays chess lets you know that he’s able to prioritize certain things and articulate things quickly, and have training recognition,” he said. awuzie. “Because that’s it in chess, pattern recognition at this point.

“If you recognize a position you’ve been in, you’re going to know the perfect move to play, or the best move to play.”

That ability has been at the core of the success of Burrow in his second season of NFL. In the victory of Cincinnati on the Wild Card Round about Las Vegas Raiders, Burrow identified a zone coverage that the defensive coordinator of the raiders, Gus BradleyI didn’t use often. Instinctively, Burrow found the weak spot in the defense, and shot a 29-yard completion to the tight end CJ Uzomah, who had talked trash about the chess game of Burrow during the campaign break.

It is the reason why the Bengals give to Burrow the freedom to make prior changes to the center at the line of scrimmage.

“We wanted it to happen, and he’s gotten better at it because he has a better understanding of what he’s seeing compared to what we have,” the team’s offensive coordinator said. BengalsBrian Callahan, in September. “It’s just the chess duel of, ‘What are you trying to achieve and how do I recognize it and take advantage of it?'”

Yes Burrow and the Bengals they can put the titans in checkmate in next weekend’s playoff game, Cincinnati will be playing in his first conference championship since 1988.

And throughout the best campaign of Cincinnati in three decades, chess has not been far from the minds of Burrow. awuzie shared that the other day, Burrow He flashed his cell phone in the cornerback’s direction, to let him know that he was preparing for another duel against the cornerback.

“I walked by your locker,” he said Burrow to awuzie. “Just let me know when you’ll be ready.”