Joe Burrow thinks he'd succeed in the NBA, and his 'irrational confidence' convinced one reporter that he'd be an NFL star

• Joe Burrow once said "with a straight face" that he thinks he could succeed in the NBA.
• Bleacher Report's Taylor Rooks said the Bengals QB told her he'd score 12-15 points a game.

Joe Burrow is thriving in the NFL, and to one reporter, it's no surprise.

The second-year quarterback led his Cincinnati Bengals to an 18-point comeback over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday afternoon's AFC championship game. The win sends his franchise to its first Super Bowl appearance in more than three decades — and, of course, the first of his lifetime.

After Burrow shined in the improbable victory, Bleacher Report's Taylor Rooks shared a nugget about the former LSU Tigers superstar that convinced her that "he was gonna be great."

"Joe Burrow told me if he went into an NBA game he could get at least 12-15 points," Rooks shared on Twitter following Sunday afternoon's victory.

She added that the football star announced his potential for professional basketball success "with a straight face." He genuinely believed that he could make it as a role player alongside the likes of LeBron James and Stephen Curry.

"That is just irrational confidence," Rooks wrote.

—Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) January 31, 2022

While Burrow's assertion that he'd succeed in the NBA is almost certainly far-fetched, the quarterback was actually a talented hooper in Ohio during his high school days. He finished his varsity career with 1,426 career points — good for second-most in Athens High School program history — and averaged 20.0 points per game during his senior season to earn first-team All-Ohio honors.

Burrow's high school basketball coach, Jeff Skinner, thinks that the quarterback could've played Division I basketball had he chosen the hardwood over the gridiron.

"I think he was definitely tracked toward a mid-major to high mid-major type of basketball player," Skinner told The Athens Messenger in 2019. "It would have taken the kind of focus and kind of work that he put in year-round for football to make that happen, but he was definitely on that track."

Whether that talent would've translated to a respectable NBA career is a different story. But that same irrational confidence has been exactly what the Bengals needed to turn around their long-ailing franchise.

A year before Cincinnati took Burrow with the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Bengals went a paltry 4-11 and finished last in the AFC North. There was no reason to believe that Cincinnati could be a legitimate Super Bowl contender any time in the immediate future.

But just two years later, Burrow's irrational confidence — in tandem with his excellent play and elite receiving corps — has powered the Bengals all the way to the sport's biggest stage.

And who knows? Maybe that irrational confidence will be enough to give Cincinnati its first-ever Super Bowl victory.