Carson Palmer on Joe Burrow's Recovery: 'He's Got the Right Mindset'

Palmer Believes Burrow Will Be Just Fine Following Devastating Knee Injury

CINCINNATI — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow expects to be on the field for the first snap of the 2021 season. 

He's said it on national television and he told the local media last week. The Bengals' star is determined to be back in September. 

Burrow's injury was similar to the one Carson Palmer suffered on January 8, 2006. 

That injury derailed the Bengals' chances of winning a Super Bowl following a promising 11-5 campaign. It was one of the most exciting seasons in team history. 

Not only did Palmer take the first snap of the following season, he also started all 16 games and made a second-straight Pro Bowl. 

Palmer believes Burrow is built to deal with the mental grind that he'll go through over the next few months during rehab. 

"It comes down to mindset. It's really tedious. It's really boring. Especially the beginning stuff," Palmer told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. "But Joe's a gym rat. That's his mentality.

"Joe will be fine. He'll be good. He's got the strength to come out of this just as good or even better."

Building trust in the knee is going to be challenging, especially for an athletic quarterback like Burrow who is accustomed to keeping plays alive with his feet. 

"For everybody, it's a mental hurdle to clear," Palmer said. "Some people may be clear it super early on in rehab. Some people it takes week seven of year one after the surgery. Some people it takes two, three years."

The 41-year-old, who suffered and recovered from a second torn ACL in 2014 when he was with the Arizona Cardinals, knows how challenging the next few months are going to be for Burrow.

"It's a monotonous, tough, mental grind," Palmer said. "Especially when you're at the facility training and all of your teammates are out working and practicing football and you're in the training room doing little mini footsteps. It's a mental battle every day. There's a mindset to it. He's (Burrow) got the right mindset for it."

If there's one silver lining to Burrow's chances of returning in time for the start of the 2021 season, it's when he got injured and when he had surgery. 

Burrow had his knee repaired on Dec. 2, which is six weeks earlier than when Palmer got injured in 2006. 

It's unfair to compare Burrow to Palmer, but this gives the 24-year-old more time to heal and strengthen the knee before the start of the 2021 season.

Palmer returned in Week 3 of the preseason following his knee injury in 2006. Burrow left the door open for a preseason, but didn't add any more pressure to what's going to be a tough recovery process. 

"I think I would get in practice and see how it feels and get confident through that and see how I feel. I think preseason is probably pushing it a little bit," Burrow said. "That Week 1 goal is mine."

Read Hobson's full feature with Palmer here.

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