Former LSU stars Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels featured on "Up & Adams Show" for Super Bowl week

Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels, two of LSU’s most electrifying players ever, joined an incredible guest lineup Thursday on the Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams in New Orleans as part of the lead-up to Super Bowl week. The two former Tigers, who each won the Heisman Trophy during their time in Baton Rouge, sat down to discuss their careers, the NFL and more.

Burrow, who led LSU to a perfect 15-0 season and a national championship in 2019, is already established as one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks with the Cincinnati Bengals, and just wrapped up his best season, statistically, with 4,918 passing yards and 43 touchdowns. Meanwhile, Daniels won the 2024 Pepsi Zero Sugar NFL Rookie of the Year award after his historic season with the Washington Commanders. He set rookie records for completion percentage (69%) and rushing yards (891), and took Washington all the way to the NFC Championship game. 

Below are some of the Q&A highlights from each QB:

Adams: I know that you had an incredible year. You were on this crazy stretch. If we look at the numbers, it’s insane—record eight straight games of 250-plus yards or three or more touchdowns. Kobe used to say that he would let the game sort of slow down, and he’d be fully present in a moment. In a hot streak like that, what is it like for you to be in that?

Burrow: Yeah, I felt great. The game was moving really slow for me. I felt fast, agile. I felt like I could put the ball where I wanted it to go. I think there’s another level that I can hit. I’m excited to try to hit it.

Adams: So you guys obviously ended the season on a hot streak. What are you looking forward to? What are you working on to maybe get off to a quicker start next year? That’s a huge narrative surrounding the Bengals.

Burrow: Yeah, we’ll see. I think our coach will have a good plan for training camp for that. My job is to be as good as I can this offseason, be consistently disciplined in my routine, and just try to get better every single day at so many different things. There’s not really anything specific that I’m going into the offseason working on—just more general improvements. Getting bigger, faster, stronger, and getting better at everything.

Adams: How do you celebrate wins?

Burrow: Well, there’s not a ton of time to celebrate wins. Usually, you just go home, and you can’t really sleep after games too much, so you go back and watch some football with your family or sit and usually have friends in town. You hang out with them a little bit, so it’s always nice to win and be able to enjoy those couple of hours after the game. The next day, it’s back to work.

Adams: I feel like you’re somebody who isn’t satisfied often. Is that a misconception? Do I have that wrong? When’s the last time you were like, ‘Yes, I did that!?’

Burrow: Probably the national championship in 2020. That felt like a culmination of a lot of different things that came together and worked out well for me. That was an exciting moment.

Adams: Is it fair to say that the next time I see you with a cigar in public, that will be a time when you’re satisfied?

Burrow: Well, if we win the division, I’ll smoke one. I wouldn’t say I’ll be satisfied after that, but winning the Super Bowl will definitely satisfy me.

Adams: I feel like you should celebrate. Obviously, you’re doing so much today, you’ve had this amazing season and all of that. There’s a lot of recruiting going on … You’re not ditching guys; you want to keep everybody in-house. I thought it was really cool when you said, ‘We’re gonna find a way to make it work.’ What do you mean by that? What do you mean by potentially restructuring?

Burrow: We have guys that want to play together. And so, we’re gonna find a way to make that work. I know our organization wants to make it happen, too. Guys want to get paid what they’re worth, but at the same time, I know how important it is to keep great players together. So, I’m gonna do what it takes. I know they will too. Hopefully, the organization does what it takes to keep everybody around.

Adams: In the offseason, when I met you in Cincinnati, it was sort of a foregone conclusion—there was no news on Tee (Higgins), and he was like, ‘I’m out of here, probably.’ It’s a business, I understand. I want to be here, I want to win here, I know the team loves him. When did you start injecting yourself into this conversation to maybe make that happen?

Burrow: I’m not sure I would say injecting myself. I think part of the job of being a quarterback of an organization is figuring out ways to make the team better. You want to be collaborative with the front office to make the team as good as you can, so I’m taking that to heart. I know, based on conversations I’ve had with our players, they want to be here, and they want to do what it takes to stay here, too. We’ll see what ends up happening, but I’m excited about our chances.

Adams: I’m excited about it, too. I mean, there’s this idea that there’s a window. Do you subscribe to this idea?

Burrow: Every year, you have a new team. It doesn’t matter. Every single year, there’s so much turnover anyway. You have new guys coming in, guys leaving, coaches leaving. Every team, every year, is a new year. So, I’m always excited for that challenge. Every year, you have to build new chemistry and figure out who you are as a unit. It’s always an exciting opportunity.

JAYDEN DANIELS

Adams: Nice to meet you. You have a very cool vibe about you, Jayden—very calm. What have you made of this experience so far at the Super Bowl?

Daniels: It’s been wild. First one as a pro, so it’s been wild—just trying to soak it all in, take everything in.

Adams: Well, we have news this morning, right? 2024—you already know this—Pepsi Zero Sugar Rookie of the Year. How does it feel, especially with big stuff going on tonight for the honors?

Daniels: It’s a blessing. I mean, with as many talented rookies as we have in our class, to be named this, voted by the fans, it’s a sign of respect. It’s a blessing.

Adams: You’re not gonna end the awards tonight. You’re not gonna end them in five years, in 10 years. If I were to fast forward 20 years from now, and you’re getting your Hall of Fame jacket, who’s the first person you’re going to think about?

Daniels: First person? My parents—both my parents. My mom and dad. You know, they helped me get to this point. They sacrificed a lot for me to get here, so I’m forever grateful.

Adams: AP Offensive Rookie of the Year—that’s gonna follow. When you look back at this season, if I had to put one of these picture frames I have back here—see some Brees and Sean Payton—what is the photo from your rookie season that you want framed?

Daniels: I would probably say me smiling—like, the NFL has me smiling. I think when we beat Tampa Bay, when I had the Band-Aid on my eye. It was crazy.

Adams: I have the picture right there. Why that one?

Daniels: Because it was the first time in, what, two decades that they won a playoff game? I think that just sums up everything that happened—for the season we had, and obviously, the fan base and how joyful and excited they were for that.

Adams: What does this fan base mean to you right now?

Daniels: It means a lot. Just how they embraced me, how they embraced my family, and really how they embraced this whole new team. They show out and show up every week.

Adams: Tell me—how was it in training camp?

Daniels: I had to earn everything. Nothing was handed to me. I wasn’t a captain, I wasn’t a leader, I wasn’t part of the leadership group. I had to earn that. I had to earn a starting role. They really treated me like another player—like I was still a rookie.

Adams: Do you think that was the right way to do it, looking back?

Daniels: Yeah. I wanted to earn everything. I wanted to earn the respect of the coaches, my teammates. If they had just handed me everything, I wouldn’t have felt right with that. There are guys in the league who’ve been here for 10-plus years—I had to earn the right to talk trash to Bobby (Wagner). I had to earn the right through my play.

Adams: He’s bringing that to the table, and you’re bringing virtual reality. Now, I know nothing about this. Explain to me what it was like bringing that to Cliff Kingsbury.

Daniels: It’s crazy. It’s like a video game. It’s literally a VR headset, but it’s realistic because the movements are just like real football movements. I wish I had it on me so I could show you. If you come back to training camp, I got you.

Adams: How does it help you? What would be your sell to explain how VR impacted your success?

Daniels: You don’t get a lot of reps throughout the week, especially later in the season. So you can literally sit there for 45 minutes to an hour with no stress on your body. You’re just flicking your wrist, visualizing everything. It even puts you in the stadium—exact details, play clocks, everything. By the time you get there on Sunday, you’ve already seen your surroundings.

Adams: Has there ever been a play you ran in VR that worked out exactly how you thought it would?

Daniels: Yeah. Even back in college—I remember seeing a certain coverage, and when I ran it in VR, it played out exactly the same way in real life.