His first battle came exactly seven plays in, because Riley Moss stood alone on Monday night.
A third-down snap hit Jake Browning’s hands, and the Bengals quarterback’s eyes snapped to the left side of the formation. They did not move. He didn’t glance anywhere else. This was the game plan.
Wide receiver Tee Higgins shoved off the line against Moss on a fade route, the same matchup that downed the Broncos in Week 17 last season. And in a different year, with a different quarterback, the outcome was the same early in Monday night’s first quarter as Higgins pivoted to his back-shoulder and slammed to the turf with a 19-yard catch.
Moss lost that first battle. He has lost many first battles before.
But Denver’s CB2 is wired to win the war.
“He told me,” Broncos outside linebacker Nik Bonitto recalled postgame, “he loves this (expletive).”
Cincinnati had a prayer Monday night with Browning in at center for the injured Joe Burrow: attack Moss. It worked in 2024, with Moss coming off injury and at the mercy of Higgins. It stayed in “the back of his mind” ever since, as Moss’s mother Beth told The Denver Post. And the Bengals went right back at that matchup 10 months later, sending four targets Higgins’ way within the first 11 minutes against the Broncos.
Moss got beat once on a play that was called back for a penalty. He beat Higgins right back on a mid-second-quarter deep shot. Then he proceeded to hold the Bengals’ $115 million man to a single 7-yard catch in the second half of a 28-3 Broncos blowout.
“I think Riley’s built for it, man,” Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “He’s seen it all, you know what I mean? Teams try to target him a lot. But he’s made for it.
“He’s ready for the competition. He always rise to the occasion.”
Moss told his mom postgame, as she recalled, that he had to calm himself down after a couple of early plays. This matchup was “personal,” as Bonitto put it. Higgins went for 11 catches and three touchdowns on Moss last December, nearly sunk the Broncos’ playoff hopes, and put into question whether they had a CB2 who could hold up opposite Surtain.
“All the other games led up to this one,” Beth told The Post late Monday night. “Because he wanted to prove to himself that he could hang with Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase.”
He hung all over Higgins, as the wideout finished with just three catches for 32 yards on six targets. And Surtain II hung all over Chase in the third round of one of the great individual matchups in the modern NFL, as Cincinnati’s WR1 had all of 23 yards on five catches.
Chase has sped away from most every challenger in the league, through four seasons. But with or without Burrow, the Bengals have rarely been able to feed him against Surtain. Both were invisible for long stretches Monday night; Surtain didn’t allow a single catch in 10 man-coverage reps against Chase, according to Next Gen Stats.
“It does mean a little bit more, matter of fact,” Surtain said of the matchup postgame. “But I always think about me versus me, at the end of the day, no matter who I gotta go up against.”
That’s the expectation every week for Surtain. The expectation every week, too, is that teams will set their sights away from the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year. And more so than most nights, the Bengals’ offensive identity for a long first-half stretch seemed to hinge on attacking quick underneath routes to open up shots to Higgins — or Chase — on Moss.
When that didn’t work, Cincy crumbled. The Bengals only landed in Broncos territory for one snap after the first quarter, managing a total of 88 net yards of offense from that point. Cincinnati went 2 for 11 on third downs and ruined themselves with penalties.
“He love it when they keep coming at him,” Bonitto said of Moss. “He did his thing, they went away from it. Shoutout to Riley Moss.”
Moss has lined up opposite Eagles star Cooper DeJean at Iowa. At this point, the 2022 third-round pick is one of the most visible corners in the league playing next to Surtain. He’s had his trials. He’s lost plenty.
Monday night, though, marks another win in Moss’s burgeoning career.
“Now you know you can hang with these guys,” Beth Moss told her son after the Broncos’ win, as she recalled. “And now, you can do anything you want.”
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