Joe Burrow isn't as good as he was prior to last November's season-ending wrist surgery. The Cincinnati Bengals' quarterback has been even better during the season's first 11 games. He currently leads the NFL with 27 touchdowns and, in Steelers coach Mike Tomlin's words, is having an "MVP-caliber" season so far.
While things have been great so far for Burrow, he recently acknowledged that he isn't sure how his surgically repaired wrist will fare in cold weather games. He'll find out this Sunday, when the 4-7 Bengals host the 8-3 Steelers in a game that has major playoff implications.
"I don't know. That's a question that remains to be answered," Burrow said, via Sports Illustrated. "I haven't experienced a cold weather game with that yet. In the past when I've had injuries, cold weather does affect it, so we'll find out. Maybe I'll have a heater on the sideline or something. I haven't really thought about that yet, but we'll see."
As noted above, Burrow's wrist wasn't an issue during the season's first 11 games. While Cincinnati has struggled to win games, Burrow is enjoying quite possibly the best season of his career to this point. He's been even better as of late, with 12 touchdowns against just one interception over Cincinnati's last three games.
"If you look at the tape, he's MVP-caliber in terms of what he's doing for them," Tomlin recently said of Burrow, who has a 3-2 career record against the Steelers.
As he alluded to, Sunday's game will be Burrow's first in cold weather since undergoing wrist surgery. The temperature is calling for freezing temperatures and considerable winds. Along with managing the weather, Burrow will also have to find a way beat Pittsburgh's third-ranked scoring defense, led by T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick and newcomers Patrick Queen and DeShon Elliott.
"They're physical. They're really good tacklers, their safeties are two of the best tandems in the league," Burrow said of Pittsburgh's defense. "I have a lot of respect for those guys. The way that they're playing right now, the way that they disguise their coverages, you just consistently see them making open-field tackles on plays that should have been explosives and they come out and make an open-field tackle to limit that. So we're going to have to be great in the open field making guys miss and creating some plays."