For Joe Burrow, recovering from wrist surgery meant finding new ways to spend the hours away from football. So, during the 2024 offseason, the Bengals quarterback finally picked up something he had long wanted to try: a piano. Following lessons on YouTube, Burrow began teaching himself to play, while the movements also helped him work on the dexterity in the hand attached to the throwing wrist that had just ended his previous season.

It was hardly the first time Burrow had been forced to sit back and watch football move on without him. By then, the quarterback had already fought his way back from a devastating knee injury as a rookie before suffering a season-ending wrist injury three years later. The latter recovery even made him confront what he called his “football mortality.” Yet, rather than making him think about walking away from the game sooner, those setbacks appear to have changed his outlook in the opposite direction.

“I used to think I didn’t want to play very long,” Burrow recently told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. “And now I’m like, ‘I’m just going to go until I can’t do it anymore.’ This is fun to do. What the hell else would I do?’ I used to want to go and maybe play a different sport after a couple of Super Bowls, but now I’m like, I’m just going to play until I can’t.”

Ever since Cincinnati drafted him No. 1 overall in 2020, injuries have repeatedly interrupted Burrow’s career. His rookie season ended in Week 11 after he tore his ACL and MCL in his left knee. But Burrow returned to lead the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI in 2021, earning AP Comeback Player of the Year honors. Cincinnati lost 23-20 to the Los Angeles Rams before returning to the playoffs the following season and reaching another AFC Championship Game, where they fell 23-20 to Kansas City. Then came another setback.

In Week 11 of 2023, Burrow suffered a season-ending injury to his right wrist and underwent surgery. He returned in 2024 and led the NFL with 4,918 passing yards and 43 touchdowns, but Cincinnati again missed the playoffs amid defensive struggles.

Last season brought another setback. A severe turf-toe injury in Week 2 sidelined Burrow for nine games, leaving him with just eight appearances. But it also forced him to adapt. Unable to move as freely, Burrow learned to take the safer option instead of always trying to escape pressure and create something himself.

“I had to get rid of the ball and live to see another down a little bit,” Burrow said. “Normally my physical ability would have let me make that guy miss and go make a play; last year I couldn’t.”

It was a different approach for a quarterback accustomed to doing what he called “go-play-Superman” when Cincinnati needed him. But as Burrow has grown older, he has learned to mitigate risk early and save those plays for when they are truly needed.

The physical recovery is only part of what comes with missing time. “Two out of the last three seasons, I’ve missed extended time,” Burrow said. When he is injured, he explained, he is away from his teammates and no longer experiencing the season alongside them.

“It’s a lonely process,” Burrow said. “When you’re hurt, you’re away from the team, you’re away from the guys. You’re not going through it like they are.”

That makes his latest stance more telling. After spending significant parts of three of his six NFL seasons dealing with injuries and rehabilitation, Burrow isn’t setting an age or a Super Bowl total as his finish line.

And entering 2026, he believes Cincinnati may finally have a team capable of taking some of the burden off him. The Bengals have added Dexter Lawrence II, Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe and Bryan Cook, giving the defense more experience and depth.

Burrow said the past few seasons often felt like “every possession was do or die.” With a stronger defense, he believes the Bengals can play a more balanced game rather than asking their offense to produce something extraordinary every time it takes the field.

That would also give Burrow what he has wanted throughout his career: meaningful football in January and February.

“I really want to win games,” he said. “I want to be playing when it matters, January, February; that’s why you do it.”

And for Burrow, the end of that pursuit no longer comes with a timetable. Once, he imagined winning a couple of Super Bowls and trying another sport. Now, after everything his body has already put him through, he simply plans to keep playing until he can’t.