Joe Burrow’s Christmas gifts to his offensive linemen are pretty dino-mite.
The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback gifted his teammates authentic dinosaur, bear and mammoth fossils for the holiday — a gift that many of the offensive linemen said fits his personality well.
“I think it speaks to his intelligence and interests and his desire to do something unique,” Bengals center Ted Karras told ESPN on Friday, December 26, of Burrow’s gift choice. “I thought it was really special.”
According to ESPN’s Bengals reporter Ben Baby, Burrow invited his offensive linemen to his house on Monday, December 22, for a holiday gathering. There, Burrow had the fossils on display and each player selected their bones of choice.
The order of selection was determined by seniority and when they arrived.
Karras reportedly picked a woolly mammoth fossil (that archeologists estimated to be about 30,000 years old) while Bengals Orlando Brown Jr. and Amarius Mims took home bear skulls.
Rookie Dylan Fairchild selected a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil.
Burrow’s interest in fossils and artifacts was highlighted in season 2 of the Netflix series “Quarterback,” which debuted in 2024.
“When aren’t fossils on your mind?” Burrow said in the episode. “They go back millions of years. That’s sick.”
The episode shows Burrow and some teammates going to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. There, they saw several rare fossils, including one believed to belong to an Archaeopteryx.
“We went to the Natural History Museum. They took us behind the scenes and showed us some really cool stuff. It’s like a library of fossils that they don’t show everybody else,” Burrow said in the series.
He added, “It’s like you go to a shoe store, and they’re like ‘Maybe we have it in the back.’ And it was, like, all the fossils back there. It was pretty sick.”
Burrow’s unique gesture was a hit with the offensive linemen.
“It says a lot about who he is — his personality, his heart, all of those things, man,” said Brown. “He’s just a special person.”
“It was quite an event, man,” Karras said. “He just continues to outdo himself as always with his kindness and generosity and his creativity. We’re just very thankful for him.”
Burrow has missed nine games this season due to injury, and the Bengals (at 5-10) will miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
Despite the adversity, Burrow was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week after the team’s Week 16 win against the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday, December 24.
Quarterbacks giving gifts to their offensive linemen has become a solid holiday tradition across the NFL.
This year, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen and his wife, actress Hailee Steinfeld, gifted the Bills linemen one-quarter of a cow, perhaps a nod to the team’s “everybody eats” mantra. Each lineman also got a Schwank Infrared Grill.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes gave each of his linemen a Hublot watch, as well as a Full Swing KIT (the indoor golf practice tool). Mahomes’s teammates also got Beats Studio Pro headphones, Oakley Meta HSTN AI sunglasses, Rimowa aluminum suitcases and Aventon e-bikes.
Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers sent his Pittsburgh Steelers offensive linemen Can-Am off-roader side-by-sides, off-road ATV vehicles.
Jared Goff got custom golf carts (Goff carts, if you will) for his Detroit Lions teammates.
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