Bengals' Joe Burrow makes promise as Browns' Myles Garrett pursues sack record

Shortly after Cleveland Browns star pass-rusher Myles Garrett failed to tally a sack in his club's Week 17 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Garrett said that he felt the Steelers "were more worried about keeping me away from" the single-season sack record than about winning the game. 

Garrett will enter Cleveland's season finale at the Cincinnati Bengals on 22 sacks, well within reach of the official (22.5) and unofficial (23) records for that stat. While speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow offered somewhat of a promise regarding how he will handle Garrett's pursuit of history.

Joe Burrow plans "to go and play football" amid Myles Garrett's pursuit of sacks record

"Yeah, I’m certainly not going to overcompensate either way," Burrow said, per Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. "I’m not going to go out of my way to not let him get the record. And I’m not going to go out of my way to let him get the record either. I’m going to go and play football."

Back in Week 1 of the season, the Browns suffered a 17-16 home loss to the Bengals. Garrett sacked Burrow twice that afternoon. 

"There’s going to be situations that a sack is the best of the bad outcomes of that play, and maybe I take one," Burrow continued during his comments. "And there’s going to be other situations that I’m about to get sacked, and I need to throw it away in that situation. Such a situational game that I don’t think you can go in thinking one way or the other. Every play is so different." 

Joe Burrow has a lot of respect for Myles Garrett

As of Thursday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had Garrett as a massive -20000 betting favorite to claim Defensive Player of the Year Award honors for the second time in his career. Of course, Burrow has seen plenty of Garrett while the two have featured for divisional rivals as pros.

"He’s more athletic than everybody else on the field — bigger, stronger than everybody else," Burrow added about Garrett. "He has a mindset that he’s not too high or too low at any point, which is pretty unique for a defensive lineman. I think he’s probably got a unique mindset as far as that position goes. But it’s one that you can appreciate. He’s a guy that I’ve kind of gotten to know over the years, and I like him as a person. He takes his job very seriously and is a guy I have a lot of respect for."

Perhaps Burrow will do Garrett a solid in the fourth quarter of this Sunday's game if the latter has no sacks at that point of the contest.