Joe Burrow haircut at Bengals training camp prompts hilarious social media reaction

The start of NFL training camp represents a fresh start for teams and players across the league, with the upcoming season giving even the worst, most woebegone franchises the hope that their fortunes might improve.

For Joe Burrow, a fresh start means a fresh haircut.

The Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback arrived Tuesday for his team’s training camp sporting a new hairdo that quickly set various corners of the internet ablaze.

Burrow enters the 2024 season looking to reestablish himself as one of the league’s top quarterbacks. After guiding the Bengals to Super Bowl 56 in 2022 and taking them to the AFC championship game in 2023, he missed the final seven games of the 2023 season after suffering a torn scapholunate ligament in his right wrist during the first half of the Bengals' 34-20 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 16.

As the Bengals look to make it back to the NFL playoffs out of the deep and daunting AFC North, they’ll do so with a new-look quarterback — literally.

Here’s more on Burrow’s haircut:

Joe Burrow haircut, explained

Burrow walked into the first day of the Bengals’ training camp looking much different than he did the last time he was on an NFL field.

Throughout his NFL career, and going back to his days as a Heisman Trophy winner at LSU, Burrow has been known for his luscious, parted locks. However, as the run-up to the 2024 NFL season officially began, Burrow went for a different stylistic choice.

The Bengals star’s hair was trimmed down to a buzz cut and dyed bleach blonde, making him look more like the rapper Eminem or wrestler Cody Rhodes.

While the buzzcut is a new twist, the bleached blonde hair is actually a return of sorts to Burrow's roots (though not his natural follicle roots, as he has brown hair). At one point during his standout career at Athens High School in southeast Ohio, Burrow's hair was dyed blonde, as some on social media were quick to point out.

It's not the first time this offseason that Burrow's hair has been the subject of chatter.

In May, an NFL aggregation account posted a photo on X of Burrow with shoulder-length, flowing hair that reminded many of actor Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in the 2005 film "Revenge of the Sith," the third "Star Wars" prequel.

For as much fun as the internet had with it, the picture was photoshopped.

Joe Burrow hair reaction

Predictably, Burrow’s haircut drew quite the reaction on social media.

Much of the commentary has centered around his resemblance to Rhodes and Eminem, though others have noted that trying to look like Eminem could make Burrow more similar to Stan, the rapper's fictional deranged fan who was the subject of a 2000 song of the same name.

Ken, the famous doll and Ryan Gosling's character in the 2023 blockbuster "Barbie," was also a common point of comparison.

Here’s a sampling of what people on X, formerly known as Twitter, had to say about Burrow’s hair:

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Burrow hair: Bengals QB at training camp with blonde buzz cut