SILENT WORK TAKES ON A LOUD LIFE OF ITS OWN

The latest Joe on the NFL’s biggest stage, Joe Burrow, says do the silent work and keep it to yourself.

Has Joe done his work in silence?

He can give advice on the the work since what he’s done has paid off. After all he’s a starting quarterback in this season’s Super Bowl.

So how do we know so much about Joe?

It’s those damn sports writers. They never do their work in silence.

“Focus on getting better,” Burrow said. “Don’t have a workout and post it on Instagram the next day and then go sit on your butt the next day and everyone thinks you’re working hard but you’re not. Work in silence. Don’t show anyone what you’re doing. Let your performance on Friday nights and Saturday nights and Sunday nights show all the hard work you put in. Don’t worry about all that social media stuff.”

That’s a copy and paste quote from some writer on Yahoo Sports.

Thank you, Michael David Smith.

That’s big time Joe up top smoking a cigar after LSU’s college national championship win.

The work Joe did started at Ohio State, but you know that. Joe didn’t tell you. It was a sports writer.

When he was asked about his cigar habit, Joe said he lights up after a big game, like his last college game, and his championship games in the NFL.

If he guides the Cincinnati Bengals past the Los Angeles Rams he’ll probably fire up another one.

So he does the silent work then lets his cigar do the talking for him.

Does he have to smoke in uniform? Who does that?

Silent Work, Silent Smoker

That’s Len Dawson of the first Kansas City Chiefs getting warmed up at half-time.

“Len, let’s go over a few plays. “

“I like the play on this Tareyton, coach. It’s a good draw through that charcoal filter. Give me a minute.”

Seeing athletes smoke in their uniform isn’t new, but why not take it out of the locker room, out of uniform, and out of the glare of publicity?

Do we need a silent work statement from the stars?

“Work in silence. Don’t show anyone what you’re doing.”

It’s good advice, Joe, now apply it to that cigar.

Don’t explain how you’re a grown man with the freedom to smoke or not to smoke, to smoke once a year, or smoke only on special occasions.

Then it changes.

Everything is a special occasion so why not keep a carton of ciggies in the freezer and build a humidor for your special smokes if that’s where you’re going.

The Royal Courtesan cigar is filled with rare Himalayan tobacco that has been watered only with Fiji water. Each piece is wrapped in gold leaf and the band is embellished with diamonds totaling up to five carats. If you can afford it, a messenger wearing spotless white gloves will hand deliver this opulent cigar to your place. Sit back and enjoy this royal cigar like a king for the ransom you paid for it.

Joe can afford it.

Put Me In Coach

“It was a tight game until Boom, I loosened up on the sidelines with a Salem. Anyone else need a menthol heater-upper?”

Coach Madden knew how to run a team.

Did everyone smoke in the old days?

Of course not, but it was ‘a different time.’

From the looks of things, different time meant ‘time for a smoke.’

Why not go Old School all the way and smoke in uniform like you really mean it, Joe?

If winning the biggest game of the year, the last game of the season, the career defining game in your profession, then smoke like a man.

Concrete Chuck Is The Man

Who was going to tell Chuck Bednarik what to do in his spare time?

Bednarik didn’t really get into football until he returned from World War II (after a 30-mission tour as a B-24 waist gunner with the Army Air Corps that saw him win the Air Medal).

I can’t imagine ol’ Chuck did much silent work in his bomber.

With a new cigar clamped between his teeth and a half smoked cigarette in his left hand, what would you guess is in his right hand? A can of Schmidt’s?

The old veteran deserved every puff and every drop.

I met a man of Bednarik’s era in a VA hospital in the early 80’s.

He was a patient with a hole in his neck from smoking. Every mouthful of hospital food did two things: some of it got to his stomach, but he coughed most of it out of his neck stoma in a spray that covered his bed during every meal.

And he was enthusiastic eater.

He had a single room and enjoyed a satisfying cigarette while he watched an orderly change his sheets, inhaling with his mouth, exhaling out of the hole in his neck.

That’s the picture that stuck with me. He was a wiry looking little Texan who didn’t have a care in the world and didn’t care who knew it.

I asked him about his life, asked him if he ever thought he’d quit smoking.

That made him laugh so hard he gagged up and sprayed it all over his newly made bed.

“Is that a good enough answer, boy? Now get somebody to clean me up.”

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Dear Joe,

Why not do the silent work and be a better example for people you’ll never meet, never know, but who you’d like if you did meet them?

Don’t make little Tad in Pop Warner League ask his dad, “Why is Joe Burrow smoking?”

Why make messes you’ll never clean up?