Who had Ja’Marr Chase on their fantasy team this week? Or did you play against him and have to watch in horror as he caught pass after pass, racking up points in PPR leagues with receptions alone?
The Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver went absolutely bananas on Thursday Night Football in a thrilling 33-31 last-second win over Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The win over the AFC North division leader moved the Bengals to 3-4 may have saved the Bengals’ season.
Chase ended the night with 16 catches on 23 targets for 161 yards and an eight-yard touchdown. In terms of the receptions and the targets, those are both Bengals’ team records.
“I didn’t even know I had 16,” Chase said after the game. “I thought I had nine, if I’m being honest. It didn’t feel like that many.”
Bengals offense finally clicking with Flacco getting Ja’Marr Chase involved
In the first couple of games sans all-world quarterback Joe Burrow, Chase almost seemed like an afterthought. It was like watching a Philadelphia Eagles game where you didn’t even know A.J. Brown was still employed by the team.
Well, Jake Browning is out and the young, spry Joe Flacco is in. He looks lighter and faster than ever (flashbacks to Colin Kaepernick in his prime) and he apparently figured out that making Chase the top option on every play is the way to go.
“Man, it’s a lot of fun,” Flacco said in post-game comments. “And obviously, it’s a lot of fun toward the end of the game when you’re getting ready to go, but yeah, this is what we do it for, is games like that. It came down to the wire. We know it’s going to, and really, really happy about how the guys just stayed with it for the full 60 minutes.”
Yeah, that last sentence isn’t really a compliment; it’s what you’re supposed to do. But, the point was made and the sentiment was conveyed.
“Last week, it seemed we had finally figured out how it was going to be with Flacco and the offensive line. And today we showed what we’re capable of,” Chase said.
Ja’Marr Chase and the Bengals knew what was coming and took advantage of it
It wasn’t just Chase who went off. Batman’s Robin a.k.a. Tee Higgins had a big game too. He ended up with six catches for 96 yards and a touchdown. For a team like the Steeles with two high-end corners (ok, they are overrated, but they’re competent if not shut-down), these kinds of games shouldn’t happen.
“They did exactly what we were expecting and hoping they’d do,” Chase said. “Man (coverage). We knew they were going to put Joey (Porter Jr.) on Tee (Higgins) and put Jalen (Ramsey) on me. We knew that we were ready for it. We knew that we were going to take advantage of those opportunities.”
It was tough to see this game coming from Chase considering he was non-existent for several weeks and the Bengals looked like a lost cause as a whole.
“We knew we were close,” he said. “Last week, we felt like we just figured out about how we’re going to go about Flacco, and just the offense period. I think today we showed what we’re really capable of, and showed how prolific this offense really can be.”
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