Ja’Marr Chase, Joe Burrow’s best man who knows him like a brother, agrees.

In the glow of last Thursday night's holiday win in Baltimore, it was the most emotional Chase has ever seen his friend in this seven-year maze of national titles, Heisman Trophies, Super Bowl runs and a first double Comeback Player of the Year with the same team rewarding the quiet triumphs over the most trying of times.

Burrow suddenly turns 29 (29?) a few days after Sunday's top of the NFL summit (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s FOX 19) in Buffalo against NFL MVP Josh Allen. With age comes, well, age.

"That was the first time I've seen him like that. Any other emotion, he's pretty pissed off," said Chase after Thursday's practice, where they prepped for Burrow's second start after his turf toe rehab. "You don't see that side of him. He doesn't like showing emotion. He doesn't like people reading him, either."

His father, the lifelong defensive coach who raised him like a son instead of an offensive prodigy, can read him like a cover two. He sensed the same thing Chase did.

"Normally, he's a little more subdued after a game, especially in a victory, but you could just tell he was really happy that he was back and contributed, and his team rallied around him," Jimmy Burrow says. "I think it just meant so much to him to get back and play well and help his teammates win a game. That's what he does. That's what he lives for. So, yeah, it was emotional.

"He loves the Bengals, he loves his teammates, and it meant a lot to the team, and I think that he reacted accordingly."

From what Joe Burrow could ascertain, no NFL player had come back from this type of injury in the same season. When he eased his right foot into a 13.5-size cleat fitted for the injury (a half-size bigger) to play the Ravens, it was a day shy of 10 weeks since his surgery.

"He's got a lot of trust in Matt (Summers) and Nick (Cosgray)," says Jimmy Burrow of the Bengals' trainers who headed up the rehab. "He buys into them."

Ten weeks. That was supposed to be the quickest return ever in the NFL with this type of toe injury. Joe Burrow had heard about the 10-week thing. Maybe just something else to defy the experts, beat the odds and keep this Ohio Paul Bunyan-esque legend going.

"He's always found something to try to prove people wrong," Jimmy Burrow says. "Even Athens High School, small-school playoff run. Ohio State not good enough. Going to LSU. And still, people said, well, he can't play in the SEC. He feeds off of that."

Jimmy Burrow never coached Joe very much in anything during those days in Athens. But once the Ohio University defensive coordinator found himself coaching Joey in fifth or sixth grade basketball to help out. He wanted Joe to throw it into the post. They didn't argue much, but they did here. No, Joe wanted to shoot. He wanted to win, and he knew he could score from downtown. The post?

"He was a great three-point shooter," Jimmy Burrow says, "so probably he did prove me wrong."

Something about these Burrows and all that. Go back long before. Back in the day when freshman didn't play varsity. When Jimmy Burrow was a walk-on freshman safety at Ole Miss.

Jimmy thought he had a terrific spring after that year on the freshman team and walked into Ole Miss head coach Billy Kinard's office.

"Coach, I have a chance to go to Nebraska on a scholarship, but I prefer staying here," Jimmy Burrow told Kinard.

They wanted to wait to see how Burrow played in the fall. Jimmy told him, "Thank you, but I'm going to Nebraska."

A few New Year's Eves later in New Orleans, Nebraska trailed Florida, 10-0, in the Sugar Bowl, and the safety from Amory, Miss., blew up the Gators' wishbone on a fourth-down stop at the goal line to fuel the Cornhuskers' 13-10 comeback.

In the locker room, Jimmy Burrow told an interviewer, "I wish Billy Kinard a Happy New Year."

Ja'Marr Chase gets that. He's lived it many new years. His brother likes it when they tell him no. You see Burrow, a perennial MVP candidate, going into the house of Josh Allen, reigning MVP?

"A hundred percent. I think that adds fire to him, fire to his fuel all the time," Chase said. "I think that's what he likes. I think that's really what makes his personality, to be honest.

"I'm really self-motivated. I don't really need anyone to tell me I can't do something for me to get pushed on it. And I'm pretty sure Joe's the same way. But he always hears stuff about himself."

What they're saying about him this week is he's the "Darling of the Dogs." The sultans of stats, the analytic aces, the connoisseurs of charts are spitting out numbers suggesting Joe Burrow is one of the greatest underdogs of all-time.

It's been a bad month for the odds.

"He had that game penciled in very early in his rehabilitation. That's the one that he wanted to come back on. That Thanksgiving Day," Jimmy Burrow says. "Initially, most people around him thought Buffalo. And then, all of a sudden, I'm sure he was pushing Zac (Taylor) to play against New England (two weeks earlier).

"It was a good team effort to get him back as soon as it was. But a lot certainly has to do with how Joe attacks every day after a major injury."

So it's OK, Chase says, to show that emotion.

"I saw it at the game a little bit. He was just taking a moment," Chase said. "I think when he got the game ball, he was just soaking It all in. But I can't blame him for going through all those injuries and coming out how he did in college and transferring. He's been through a lot."

In his last game before he turns 29, Burrow seems to be savoring it more and more.

"I think in his mind, he knows that because he has been hurt, he values the opportunity to be out there and, hey, it's not easy playing in the NFL. Not a whole lot of people get to do it," says Jimmy Burrow, who once told him not to shoot. "He does think about a lot of different things than once upon a time."

Odds are he won't wish Josh Allen Happy New Year.