Damar Hamlin insists he will return to Cincinnati ‘with courage’ as the Buffalo Bills face the Bengals 10 months on from the safety’s on-field cardiac arrest last season

After 40 years covering this game, I’ve come to realize how maddeningly interesting and capricious it is. Take Cincinnati-San Francisco in California Sunday. The game turned on a shake of the shoulder by one of the great players today, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who’s spent the last three games reaffirming his greatness.

Reaffirming is right, because Burrow spent the first month of the season as a liability, not a cornerstone. And on a knock-down, drag-out afternoon, with Joe Montana and old 49er friends celebrating Super Bowls past from a box upstairs, Burrow did something with 13 minutes left that Joe Cool would have done. The great ones make plays like this almost without thinking. That’s part of their brilliance.

Cincinnati was up, 17-10, and trying to put the game away after a Brock Purdy interception gave the Bengals the ball at the Niners’ 17. On first down, Ja’Marr Chase lined up split right with Tyler Boyd a step behind him and just to the right. At the snap, Burrow’s eyes bore a hole through Boyd, just the way coach and play-caller Zac Taylor designed it.

“Just trying to sell the perimeter screen,” Burrow said nonchalantly (does he ever speak in any other tone?) over the phone, an hour after the game.

And as Boyd took a step back, like he was about to catch a laser from Burrow, the QB almost imperceptibly began his throwing motion to Boyd, with corner Charvarius Ward moving forward to shadow the WR. “Yeah,” Burrow said, “I gave a little pump fake.” Very little. Still, the shoulder tic looked like it froze the corner covering Chase, Isaiah Oliver, for a split second while Chase zoomed toward the right corner of the end zone. Burrow lofted a strike to Chase, who must have found it odd to not be skin-to-skin with a corner in the end zone. He caught it unchallenged. Ballgame.

“What was cool,” Burrow said, “is it happened exactly how we practiced it. Our guys did a great job of selling it. It’s no secret we like to throw those kinds of routes to Ja’Marr—it’s a big part of what we do. In that situation, a great call by Zac.”

In that situation, great execution by Burrow. He’s just so confident, so unshakeable. Now that Burrow’s achy calf muscle that erased training camp and made him ineffective for the Bengals’ toothless 1-3 start has faded—faded is right, because it’s not altogether gone—Cincinnati should be serious contenders again. The 31-17 win Sunday and Burrow’s brilliant show (28 of 32, 87.5-percent accuracy, three TDs, no picks) gave him a 111.8 rating in the team’s three-game winning streak.

“It’s tough,” Burrow said, “when you have an injury and you’re playing through it. You obviously can’t do some things that normally you can. But we got through it. We got through it healthy and we’re on the other side now, it feels like. My strength is still coming along. In the offseason, I worked the most on athleticism and explosiveness and so it was tough to not be able to show that over the first couple weeks. I was able to show that today and it’s nice seeing hard work pay off.”

Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, all 4-3, trail 6-2 Baltimore in the AFC North, approaching midseason. Burrow’s return to health could be the decisive factor in who wins the division. “We’re exactly where we need to be,” Burrow said. “And we’re going to keep getting better.” After watching him shred the Niners, it’s hard to doubt him.