People are so busy being analytical and critical these days looking for silly reasons to find fault in others - they miss out on the priceless emotional and surreal part of life that is pretty amazing and the best distraction when reality is overwhelming.
Like he said - this can't just be a coincidence.
That's Billy Cannon (#20) in the middle.
Posted the day Joe won the 2nd Heisman in LSU history after Billy Cannon 60 years prior.
Oky I’m so glad you pointed it out I thought I was over analyzing it, but you can tell the pressure and comparison of living up to LSU Joe plays a part in their dynamic. Very professional and quick . That’s why he treated playing us like the Super Bowl ngl 😭 and Joe is still pissed about the loss lol
no such thing as over-analyzing over here, anon! we analyze, over-analyze, and then re-analyze once more!
first of all, i really do think lsu haunts all of them -in good ways AND bad.
like. i actually think SO much about the legacy that joe burrow left at lsu and it affected jayden.
jayden's final year leap -going from a projected fourth rounder to second overall- is nearly unprecedented. except of course, joe burrow. who went first overall.
jayden scored eight(!) touchdowns in one game... becoming the second player in lsu history to do so. behind who else? joe burrow.
jayden won the fucking heisman. but joe burrow won the heisman by an unprecedented and still unmatched margin. he dominated that race.
.... truly i cannot imagine how jayden felt at lsu, the pressure he was under. to be constantly being compared to joe burrow -constantly found lacking and through no fault of his own.
it's simply the fact that joe burrow went 15-0. joe burrow led maybe the greatest college team ever. joe burrow had 60 touchdown passes, 5,671 passing yards and a 76.3 completion percentage. joe burrow in 2019 is something that no one could ever live up to.
shoutout to this article, which i think constantly about:
When Jayden Daniels is asked about the pressures and expectations of being an NFL franchise quarterback, he usually starts his answer by grinning knowingly.
These people, he seems to think, don’t know what it was like in Baton Rouge, where LSU football is close to a religion and he had to follow a god.
“The fans were very spoiled with what Joe [Burrow] did and the great year he had — national champions, Heisman, all the accolades,” Daniels said. “They were looking for the next [great quarterback]. To be able to go through that [scrutiny] my first year — I played really well my first year, and it still wasn’t enough for the fans. … Coming after Joe, it was not easy at all, man. Not at all.”
Jayden Daniels lived in Joe Burrow’s shadow. Now he’s challenging him.
something to be said about how going to washington, for jayden, must've felt a little like a relief. and i'm gonna sound like such an asshole here bc washington has had good quarterbacks. joe theismann, sonny jurgensen, sammy baugh, mark rypien, kirk cousins, robert griffin iii, etc.
but washington doesn't quite have a 2019 joe burrow in their history. let me explain bc shit, maybe sammy baugh was the greatest football player of all time -i don't know, i wasn't alive for that and i highly doubt any of you were alive for that. but we were alive for the mystique of 2019 lsu, of the greatest cfb season in history. it's recency bias, because honestly playing qb, punter, and db sounds fucking impossible, but we can't idolize someone we barely know. there's a legacy in washington yes, but it's not the same. lsu had a god. it's all ghosts and cautionary tales and what-ifs in washington.
so when we talk about jayden daniels in washington, we think of washington winning a playoff game for the first time in nineteen years. we think of the hail mary game and the falcons game and the bucs game and the eagles game. we don't think of anyone else -of sammy baugh or anyone else. in washington, jayden gets to build his own legacy.
so all of that, on its own, is already so fucking fascinating. that simmering sense of resentment, of never being able to quite forget just how frustrating it was to never live up to the expectations that the other set.
as for joe, i think it's just. very weird for him, because of all the ways they're so similar.
joe's watching a young quarterback wearing his old uniform, with three elite wide receivers (i will NOT stand for terrace marshall jr and kyren lacy erasure! they were both integral to lsu's offense!), lighting up death valley every saturday. he's watching a previously unknown transfer go to baton rouge and take the cfb world by storm in his senior year. he's watching a qb projected to go in the fourth round, become the best player in college football and rocket up the draft boards.
sound familiar?
it's like -looking at your past self and the paths you didn't take. what might've happened if you made different decisions, if you were in an alternate universe.
it's just so interesting of a dynamic, to see someone step into the legacy that you left behind and try to make it your own. i said it was 'weird' for joe bc that's the only word i can think of. something that was once yours, that you built up, that you worked for -and now it's someone else's.
and last year just added so many more layers to their relationship! jayden (even after getting knocked out in the nfc championship) is viewed as having the entire world before him. he's young, he'll have more chances, he will be back. he's too good not to.
(and remember when that was joe? remember when it was joe who was tearing up the league and setting records left and right? remember when the bengals lost the superbowl and everyone said that they'd be back eventually but it's been four years since then and -yeah i think there's a 'did time pass me over? is it too late for me?' aspect to the jayden-joe relationship)
