The Bears don’t run into Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase often, but they likely will hear his name all game Sunday.
Chase is right there with the Vikings’ Justin Jefferson as the best player at his position, and the Bengals have tilted their passing attack heavily toward him. Regardless of whether it’s Joe Flacco or Jake Browning at quarterback, they’ll look for Chase often.
Flacco went to him on 42 of his 81 passes the last two weeks, more targets than any Bears wide receiver but Rome Odunze (56) has for the season. Chase leads the NFL with 99 targets (12.4 per game) and 70 catches and is second with 720 yards. No wide receiver is close in targets or catches.
He’s the top-paid wide receiver of all time — $161 million over four years — for a reason.
‘‘It’s all hands on deck to try to slow him down,’’ Bears head coach Ben Johnson said.
Trouble is, not all hands are available.
Cornerback was the strength of the Bears’ roster going into training camp, but injuries have turned it into a deficiency. The Bears are so depleted that they signed volatile free agent C.J. Gardner-Johnson this week to play nickel corner.
Johnson called Chase ‘‘a complete problem.’’ Normally, the solution would be to stick two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson on him, but he’s on injured reserve. So are Kyler Gordon and Terell Smith.
The Bears’ best option is Tyrique Stevenson, who missed their last game with a shoulder injury but practiced in full Friday and will play Sunday. Their other starter on the outside is Nahshon Wright, and Gardner-Johnson probably wouldn’t have signed if he wasn’t going to start.
Chase is headed toward his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl selection to begin his career. He was an All-Pro last season and finished eighth in MVP voting after catching 127 passes for 1,708 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Given his talent and the Bears’ injuries, it’s hard to know what a successful performance against Chase would be.
‘‘Everybody doing their job, affect the quarterback and hopefully he doesn’t touch the ball,’’ safety Jaquan Brisker said.
Chase definitely is going to touch the ball; it’s only a matter of how often and how much damage he does. The Bengals targeting him on more than half their passes isn’t balanced, but it is profitable.
‘‘There’s two dudes draped all over him, and they’re still throwing the ball to him,’’ Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said.
Chase caught 16 passes for 161 yards and a touchdown in the Bengals’ victory against the Steelers two weeks ago and 12 passes for 91 yards and no touchdowns in a loss to the Jets last Sunday. Another game like the latter would be fine, and one like the former might be tolerable if the Bears can keep fellow wide receiver Tee Higgins and a surging Bengals ground game under control.
The only other time the Bears faced Chase was in 2021, when he had two catches for 54 yards and a touchdown in the second game of his NFL career.
The Bears haven’t been burned by star wide receivers this season, other than Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams going off in the Lions’ blowout victory in Week 2.
They limited Jefferson to four catches for 44 yards in the opener, though Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy struggled for most of that game. They dodged the Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb and the Commanders’ Deebo Samuel and Terry McLaurin because of injuries.
Historically, elite wide receivers getting a ton of opportunities has been disastrous for the Bears. The Eagles’ A.J. Brown was the last to get 15-plus targets against them, catching nine passes for 181 yards in 2022.
Terrell Owens, then with the 49ers, was targeted 22 times against the Bears in 2000 and scorched them for 283 yards — the most they’ve allowed in their history — and a touchdown on 20 catches.
A realistic goal for the Bears is to hold Chase to a good game and prevent a great one. Just keep him from being a monster.