Joe Burrow reportedly changed from run to pass on 4th down conversion that set up winning kick

Just when we wanted to give credit to Zac Taylor for the call of his life, Mike Florio of all people steps in to tell us we should actually be praising quarterback Joe Burrow even more.

According to the Pro Football Talk site manager, Burrow’s brilliant and bold 32-yard throw to tight end C.J. Uzomah with 0:39 left in overtime—which set up rookie kicker Evan McPherson’s 33-yard game winning kick—was him calling his own number.

(For a quick recap of the most exciting moments from the Bengals’ 27-24 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, watch the video below.)

As Florio—whose credibility is questionable, to put it lightly—tells it, he noticed that Burrow appeared to be changing the call after he received it from the coaching staff. Supposedly, the quarterback confirmed this in a telephone conversation with the controversial reporter:

“Speaking to him by phone after the game, I told him that I said at that moment, ‘He’s changing it to a pass.’ ‘Sounds like you were right,’ Burrow said, laughing.”

According to Florio, Burrow gave him this as his reason: “They had a lot of people between the A gaps. We didn’t like the play we had called in that situation and we knew we were going to call that play if we didn’t get the look that we liked. It’s been a good play for us the last two years.”

Of course, the story continues to say that Uzomah was not supposed to be Burrow’s first option.

“It didn’t work out exactly the way we thought it would. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown to C.J. on that route before but we got it done... They did a great job of covering the first two and we actually threw it to C.J. in practice this week for the first time in two years. I’m glad that we got that rep because I don’t know if he would’ve been ready for it if we didn’t.”

As it turned out, Uzomah got so open that Burrow was worried he’d overthink it and miss him, Florio reports: “That was going through my mind,” Burrow said regarding missing his target because it was a too-good-to-be-true moment.

We go live to talk about Burrow’s huge game in his return, BJ Hill’s impressive debut, McPherson’s awesome display of kicking power, and Ja’Marr Chase silencing the haters in the video link below: