It’s a muggy June morning in Cincinnati. Canadian wildfire smoke hangs in the humid air like pulp in soft focus, and the nearby Ohio River moves at an almost imperceptible crawl. Despite it being sunny, the sky is white, not blue. Even the open, concrete-framed halls of Paycor Stadium are warm in the early hour. For the past three days, the Bengals have been holding a mandatory minicamp ahead of preseason, and as the team exits the field and heads to the locker room, some of the players bellow whoops into the heat of the arena’s corridors: The camp has finished, and it’s time to get back to summer break.
Joe Burrow, the Bengals’ Pro Bowl quarterback, is the last guy to come through the tunnel. He stayed outside to put in a little more work. There’s other media around, mostly tossing questions at coach Zac Taylor as to how minicamp has gone—or about the unresolved contract disputes between Bengals ownership and defensive ends Trey Hendrickson (who led the NFL in sacks last season) and Shemar Stewart, a rookie. Burrow sidesteps that pod and asks if I’d like to talk with him away from the fray, while … he’s lifting?
