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Do you remember, back in early September, back when the thought of the Cincinnati Bengals playing in Super Bowl 56 would have made you chuckle, that we were spending a not-insignificant amount of time debating whether Ja’Marr Chase, the fifth-overall pick in the NFL draft, could catch an NFL football?
Really. This was a thing. Heading into the Bengal’s season-opener, Chase, who sat out the 2020 college season due to the pandemic after winning a title with LSU in 2019, had dropped the last four passes to come his way in pre-season action.
Chase actually only appeared in 18 plays in the preseason. Only three of them with starting QB — and college pal — Joe Burrow. That’s a stupidly small sample size. Yet it was time to worry.
The rookie wide-out handled a barrage of questions, speaking as honestly as he could about why he might not be absolutely 100 percent yet. Looking back, it was pretty thoughtful stuff. A player taking us on his journey as he tries to figure this problem out:
- “I would just say it’s a lack of concentration. That’s all it was. If you look back at it, I jumped in the air when the ball got to me. My eyes weren’t concentrating on the ball. I didn’t keep still, so that makes my eye adjustment for the ball move around and now my eyes get lazy where the balls coming in from.”
- “I don’t want to blame it on me sitting on my butt the whole year, but it probably had something to do with it, of course.”
- “The ball is different because it is bigger. It doesn’t have the white stripes on the side so you can’t see the ball coming from the tip point so you actually have to look for the strings on the ball at the top, which is hard to see because whole ball is brown and you have the six strings that are white. But for the most part, just have to get used to it and find out what I am comfortable with catching.”
All of these quotes, with the benefit of hindsight, seem completely reasonable. Chase found his concentration level, adjusted to the different football and … had the best rookie season from a wide receiver in the history of the sport. He broke Justin Jefferson’s record for most yards and didn’t need the 17th game to do it. He caught 13 touchdown passes, too.
But back in September, as we waited for the season to begin, this was all VERY DIRE. You could hear the whispers: Is he going to be a bust? Was it the wrong pick?
(To be very clear and up front: I was one of the people worrying about this.)
But it turns out that if you just give a talented player whose just gone through missing an entire season due to a pandemic some time to acclimate, he will.
And now we get to watch Chase help Burrow try to get the Bengals past a defense with three legends in Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller.
It’s not yet clear whether Ramsey will shadow Chase, but he’d like to. And I’d like him to, because it’d be an epic battle between two guys who love to bully the player across from them (For The Win alum Steven Ruiz had a good story on this recently at The Ringer.)
Football’s a complicated game, though, and the Rams could decide it’s best just to erase Tee Higgins with Ramsey and show Chase different looks. Who knows? That’s why this game is so fun.
One thing we know, by now, is that Chase is every bit as sure-handed as his draft slot would indicate. I’d say we could learn a lesson from our pre-season freakout over this, but I don’t believe that, because we’ve built a media machine that must constantly be fed and leaves only a little bit of time for nuance and not nearly enough space for humans to go through human things.
Quick hits: The sports world rallies around Mikaela Shiffrin … BetFTW’s own Super Bowl prop! … A Q&A with Jimmy Butler … and more.
— Everyone rallied around Mikaela Shiffrin after a missed gate to start her slalom run.
— BetFTW has its own Super Bowl prop through Tipico: The “Run it Back!” special, in which you can bet on the first kickoff of Super Bowl LVI being run back.
— Bryan Kalbrosky spoke to Jimmy Butler about his Super Bowl commercial and his amazing bowling skills.
— Check out every Super Bowl ring design dating back to 1967.