The Minnesota Vikings cut him loose in 2021 and, no, he didn’t like how it all went down. So, it didn’t matter that the general manager and head coach responsible weren’t even on the staff anymore. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t even in the state of Minnesota. This revenge was too sweet. After the Cincinnati Bengals kicked a field goal in overtime to stun the Vikings, Browning (admittedly) lost his damn mind. He ripped his helmet off, slammed it to the turf with both hands and — as the shattered helmet bounced straight into the sky like a basketball — Browning didn’t merely stare into the camera.

He stalked over to the lens like a serial killer in a horror movie. With a gash on his elbow and rage in his eyes, he screamed: “You should’ve never f–king cut me!”

Once the adrenaline wore off, Browning regretted the fact that this burst of emotion took away from the efforts of teammates. But it was real. It was rooted in what NFL life’s like for most players, the life that isn’t glamorized in commercials and documentaries.

Three days later, chatting with Go Long inside the Bengals locker room, Browning thinks back to life on the NFL fringes. To toiling on the Vikings’ practice squad 2019… to 2020… to 2021. To then waiting for his chance on the Bengals’ p-squad 2021… to 2022… to finally earning the No. 2 job. All of it, he begins, is a “logistical nightmare.” You don’t know where to live. You don’t know how much money you’ll make. Browning didn’t even sign a lease in Cincinnati until he beat out Trevor Siemian for the backup job last September. Hotels. Friends’ houses. He bunked wherever possible as his career hung in the balance.

The pain behind that outburst was real.

That summer, he was cut. He was pissed. But he expected to sign to the p-squad. Pen in hand, Browning remembers hearing a Vikings staffer go “whoa, whoa, whoa.” GM Rick Spielman wanted to talk to him. Moments later, the GM said the team didn’t even think Browning wanted to be in Minnesota. Browning was flabbergasted. Huh? He told Spielman that he never said that, that he was willing to bide his time. Spielman said they didn’t have a spot for him on the p-squad, but to hang out at the nearby Omni Vikings Lake hotel. Maybe they could find room.

For four hours — maybe five — he sat. And waited. And waited. And, finally, his agent received a text saying the Vikings were going a different direction. That’s it.

Another player on another team spat out by the NFL Machine.

“I never heard anything again,” Browning says. “It was a weird deal.”

He set every California high school passing record that matters. He lit up the record books at the University of Washington and finished sixth in the Heisman voting. All he’s done his entire life is throw touchdowns at will. But in the NFL? Jake Browning was undrafted before spending two years on the Vikings p-squad and two on the Bengals’ p-squad with one moment of reckoning in-between. He’s been viewed as the average QB with the average arm. Until now.

This 2023 NFL Season has become the Year of The Backup Quarterback. Which, of course, is the NFL’s worst nightmare. Despite the owners’ efforts to wrap their most valuable commodities in Saran wrap, as it turns out, players still suffer injuries in a contact sport. Only six of the 16 teams in the AFC have started the same quarterback in every game this season, a number that’ll drop to five if a concussion sidelines Trevor Lawrence this weekend.

No injury should’ve been more devastating that the torn ligaments in Joe Burrow’s right wrist.

He’s the player who completely changed this franchise. Burrow waltzed into stadiums in sunglasses, diamonds, Sherpa jackets and earned every cent of a $275 million contract extension. The Bengals were a play away from winning one Super Bowl and nearly reached another. His presence alone will have this city dreaming of championships every season. That’s why this injury stung more than the rest. The news sent this entire city into mourning. Even local businesses prepared for an economic downturn.