Why Super Bowl Quarterback Joe Burrow Plays Chess

Can being a chess player help you to be a better football quarterback? Perhaps it does if you are Joe Burrow, quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. An oft-quoted statement by Burrow is, “Winning is fun.” For him, it applies equally to chess as it does to football. Let's understand why:

• Learning The Game
• Chess Competition In Locker Room
• Pattern Recognition
• Chess Trash-Talking
• Keeping Opponents Off Balance

Learning The Game

Burrow has been a competitive chess player since he began playing in elementary school. When bad weather in southeastern Ohio where he and his family were living at the time forced teachers to have recess indoors, chess was one of his activities. He said: “It was too cold, and we played chess.”

When the Covid-19 pandemic required social distancing and isolation, Burrow renewed his interest in chess. Then he began playing even more after suffering a season-ending injury to his left knee in November 2020.

Chess Competition In Locker Room

A big fan of the Netflix show The Queen's Gambit, Burrow regularly challenges his teammates to a game of chess in the locker room. In a 2021 press conference, Burrow said: “Chess is fun. It’s very strategic, and you have to plan all your moves. That calls me.” See if you can detect his strategic prowess during Super Bowl LVI by watching this video of his best plays in the game. (Because the National Football League blocks any use on another website, I can't embed the video here, but you can watch it on the NFL site.)

Chess is fun. It's very strategic.
—Joe Burrow, quarterback of Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals’ locker room has a chessboard where players routinely play each other. According to Burrow, interest in playing chess began as early as training camp. Burrow initially played most of his games against tight end Thaddeus Moss, also his teammate at LSU when they won the National Championship in 2019 and Burrow won the Heisman Trophy. It’s “a good little locker room comradery thing," said Burrow.

Other players soon wanted to compete. Burrow also plays against cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, who compares his moves as a cornerback to moves in opening chess moves that fight for controlling the center of the board. Awuzie said: “You could say I'm an e4 standard move that's very effective and can be very dynamic, depending on what moves you make after that."

Bengals’ cornerbacks coach Steven Jackson, who also plays chess, is amused when Awuzie compares himself to the King’s Pawn Opening, although Jackson has a different analogy. “He's a bishop. He can take it all away across the board,” Jackson said about Awuzie’s sweeping powers as a cornerback.

Pattern Recognition

After Awuzie won games in the locker room, he recommended that Burrow (as well as Moss) download the Chess.com app to improve. They did. (Perhaps this is the best advice that a cornerback has given to a quarterback or tight end.)

About Burrow’s chess skills, Awuzie said: “The fact that he plays chess lets you know that he’s able to prioritize certain things and articulate things quickly and have formation recognition. Because that’s all chess is: pattern recognition at this point. If you recognize a position you’ve been in, you’re going to know it’s the perfect move to play or the best move to play.” (Hmmm. Does this seem like Puzzle Rush?)

That's all chess is: pattern recognition.
—Cornerback Chidobe Awuzie about the connection of chess to football 

In fact, in Cincinnati’s victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in the Wild Card Round, Burrow detected a zone coverage that the Raiders didn’t use often and found a weak spot in the defense. The quarterback intuitively threw a 29-yard completion to tight end C.J. Uzomah, who incidentally talks trash about Burrow’s chess playing.

Chess Trash-Talking

Last year Uzomah said: “The good thing I can say is [Burrow and me] have been talking crap about chess right now.” Players as well as the media also know that Burrow does his own share of chess trash-talking.

Two days before Super Bowl LVI was played, The Wall Street Journal reported: “Joe Burrow is a trash talker. … Pawn-pushers who tuned into a recent Chess.com broadcast learned this when they received a startling bit of news: Mr. Burrow has more than once had his account on the popular website muted for cursing out opponents in the app’s chat function when he loses.” (A link to the article, which is behind a paywall, is here.)

Keeping Opponents Off Balance

With a quarterback who thinks like a chess player, the Bengals not surprisingly have given him the freedom to make changes to a called play at the line of scrimmage.

About Burrow, Brian Callahan, the Bengal’s offensive coordinator, said: “He’s gotten better … because he has a better understanding of what he’s seeing compared to what we have. It’s just a chess duel of, ‘What are you trying to achieve, and how do I recognize it and take advantage of it?'”

In two short years, these chess-playing football players have helped to transform the Bengals from one of the worst franchises in the National Football League to a Super Bowl contender. About the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that the Bengals beat to win the American Football Conference in January, defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo said: “You try to keep them off balance like a game of chess against their quarterback.” (Maybe a sack is like a discovered check.)

You try to keep them off balance like a game of chess.
—Lou Anarumo, defensive coordinator of the Bengals

Perhaps in preparation for Super Bowl LVI, Burrow played 10 games on Chess.com (and reportedly won five with one draw and four losses). After the loss to the L.A. Rams, Burrow said: “We’re probably as hungry now as we were before the game.” Doesn’t that sound like a chess player who wants more—to win?

What do you think? Do you seek a connection in Burrow's chess and football skills, particularly with pattern recognition? Please add your views in the comments section.