The famous photo of Joe Burrow smoking a cigar after winning the national championship with LSU almost didn’t happen.
The now-Cincinnati Bengals quarterback provided the backstory to the celebration inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome while on the “The Full Send” podcast, explaining that police were there trying to arrest those smoking inside the building.
“We were gonna smoke all the cigars in the locker room and we started smoking them and the cops come in because I guess you’re not allowed to smoke inside or whatever,” Burrow said. “And they start trying to arrest people in the locker room. Yeah. After we won the national title. ‘We’re like, ‘What’s going on? C’mon.’
“This was in Louisiana. We played in New Orleans for the national title. They were trying to [arrest us]. And then I think they finally realized like what are we doing?”
Burrow also talked about how the now-famous picture, which he said he has in his basement, came to be.
“KJ Malone, who's the son of Karl Malone, they have a cigar company," Burrow said. "So KJ had a bunch of cigars, passing them out. He was an assistant strength coach for us, and so he was passing them out to everybody, and mine was about halfway gone when they said it's time to do media, and I didn't really want to give it up.
"So then we went into the little loading area before the press conference, and that's where that picture was taken: On the couch, right in the little waiting area to go out on stage."
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