Following the last-minute 23-20 Super Bowl LVI loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night, Joe Burrow and his young Cincinnati Bengals teammates said all the right things. Burrow stated much the same thing Dan Marino said in 1984, when he, like Burrow, guided his club to the Super Bowl in only his second NFL season only to lose.
Burrow said Sunday night, “You like to think we’ll be back in this circumstance several times over the next few years.” “We’ll take this and use it to power our careers for the rest of our lives.” We’re a new group.”
The Bengals are, indeed, a force to be reckoned with. So was Marino’s 1984 Miami Dolphins. Marino, who would go on to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, was 23 years old when he lost his first Super Bowl. He would go on to play 15 more seasons in the NFL, breaking nearly every passing record in the process. He’d never play in another Super Bowl, either.
It takes a lot of effort to make it to the NFL championship game. Returning to and winning it after losing the first time around appears to be an even more difficult task. Only three teams, the 1971 Dallas Cowboys, 1972 Miami Dolphins, and the 2018 New England Patriots, have won the Lombardi Trophy the year after losing the Super Bowl, although that is hardly the most difficult part of the recovery process.
Burrow has been sacked 102 times in two NFL seasons, including 19 times in this year’s playoffs. This included nine times against the Tennessee Titans in a win and seven times against the Rams (six in the second half). In comparison, David Carr, Derek Carr’s older brother and another previous first-round pick, was sacked 91 times in his first two seasons. He’d never be the same player again.