Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow will be the first to tell anyone who listens that he doesn’t do much in the way of non-mandatory interviews.

But it’s the middle of May as voluntary workouts get going and Burrow sounded like a guy who got a little bored and wanted to hop on a podcast.

So he did.

Burrow popped up on the Full Send podcast this week, which took place locally at Jeff Ruby’s, home of the famous Joe Burrow steak, among other luxurious items.

And the conversation was a behind-the-scenes look at Burrow, who isn’t often that loose in conversations publicly. They touched on celebrating after the Super Bowl, referees, rivals and quite a bit more.

These were the top highlights.

On knowing he was the pick

Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

Burrow let slip the Bengals told him he was the pick long before the draft itself: “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this but, they had told me months in advance that I was gonna be the guy.”

On not expecting to play in a Super Bowl

(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Burrow said it wasn’t until the playoffs and the fact they were playing like the best team in the conference that he thought they might advance to the Super Bowl:

“I mean, I just didn’t have that experience of having that success in the NFL. So I didn’t really know…I know once you get in the playoffs anything can happen. I expected to go to the playoffs. Going to the Super Bowl after we won four games and I tore everything in my knee, I thought that was kind of a pipedream.”

On celebrating after the Super Bowl

“Kurt Warner said when he lost the Super Bowl he regretted not celebrating what they had accomplished…After the game I was like yeah, it sucks, we just lost the Super Bowl but we did something really cool and I wanted to celebrate with the guys about what we did for the year and all the success that we had rather than sit in a corner and sulk about the game we just lost.

On sacks as a stat

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Count Burrow amongst those who don’t buy the importance of the sacks stat:

“Here’s the thing about sacks. There’s good sacks and there’s bad sacks. You look at the stats, yeah I got sacked a lot. You look at when they happen. Third down sacks, who cares about third down sacks? I’m going to try to extend the play as long as I can on third down to get the first down unless I’m in field goal range and it’s going to back me up, then I’ll throw the ball away and get some points. I think sacks are an overblown stat.”

On rookie QBs not getting calls

(AP Photo/Jeff Dean)

Burrow recounted the story from his rookie year against the Eagles, in which he went viral for telling Fletcher Cox he’d starting getting those calls one day (turns out he was right):

“That’s the thing, in the NFL, you gotta earn your calls. If you’re not playing very well…you gotta earn that.”

“My rookie year, I got zero roughing the passer calls. First half of this year, zero. I think at some point somebody made a call and said ‘hey, we gotta keep this guy on the field.'”

(AP Photo/Gail Burton)

“I love playing the Ravens because they talk. I love that. It (the score) was a lot to a little. I love playing the Ravens. They like to talk. I don’t start the talking but I usually, somebody pokes me, I can talk.”

On not being faked out by Tom Brady's retirement

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