CINCINNATI — All you need to know about Ja’Marr Chase, the captain, is that he takes his job of protecting and defending his teammates very seriously.
He stands up for them. He coaches them in the locker room. He counsels, comforts and consoles them. He’ll criticize them. But if you go after them in an opposing uniform on the field and take cheap shots at them, then that’s where he draws the line.
Ja’Marr Chase, we learned Tuesday in his first press conference since his one-game suspension for spitting at Jalen Ramsey, has limits.
“I just wanted to get it out and give a moment to apologize to everybody for letting myself get out of control, out of character,” Chase said. “Basically, messing over my name, my organization, the NFL and everybody else associated with me. That’s pretty much it, though.”
Chase wasn’t in the mood to re-live what Ramsey did on the field to cause Chase to expectorate at Ramsey. But it was clear to the Bengals receiver that a line was crossed. Clearly, Chase hasn’t forgotten nor has he forgiven what Ramsey did and said on the field.
Obviously, what Chase did was degrading and reprehensible in the field of an NFL game. He knows that. He acknowledged that. But he didn’t apologize to Ramsey in person, nor did he feel the need to mention the Steelers defensive back in his Instagram post on Monday.
“I ain’t gonna get into the details of all that, but I know, of course. “We (didn’t) have no conversations. Nothing like that. I ain’t got no way to contact him, so.”
In the immediate aftermath of that moment in Pittsburgh, Chase became the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism all over social media. In this day and age in sports, when a high profile athlete commits that kind of on-field crime, people feel the entitlement of coming down as hard as they can. Chase was hardly caught off guard.
“It’s social media. Everybody’s got an opinion,” Chase said. “Everybody’s going to say something, but it is what it is at the end of the day. I keep my points on it. I watch it. I see who says stuff, and it is what it is. So I don’t really care.”
Will opponents like Baltimore Thursday in his first game back, try to bait him into similar behavior?
“They already do it. They’ve been doing it,” Chase said. “It ain’t nothing new. At the end of the day, like I said, it’s a lot. It’s stuff that you’re going to allow and stuff that you’re not going to allow. It’s a limit to everything.”
Chase saw Ramsey take cheap shots at Tee Higgins and Andrei Iosivas that could’ve resulted in injuries to both since they were mostly blindside and in Higgins case, as he crossed the goal line on the only TD of the day in Pittsburgh. Chase was right there watching and made a mental note. Chase himself, took a blindside shot to the back and went down hard. It’s totally fine to drill someone if they see you and can brace for it in the course of a play. But to take shots at receivers who are defenseless and not part of the play is as low as it gets for guys like Chase.
Ramsey took a shot at Caleb Williams that looked bad in Chicago but was totally legal. He’s always played this way. But here’s the thing. Stuff like this gets settled on the field. If you’re going to play that way, there’s a price to be paid. Chase just picked the wrong method of payment, and paid his own price.
“All I can say is there’s limits when stuff happens,” Chase said. “You know what I’m saying? There’s limits. And there’s an amount of limits people can control and they gonna allow. That’s all I can say about that.”
Chase certainly could also be referencing all the trash talking that was going on between the two noted masters in Chase and Ramsey. Bengals fans clearly remember Ramsey effectively getting under the skin of A.J. Green in 2017, with Green and Ramsey getting kicked out of the first half of a Bengals-Jaguars game, won by the Jags, 23-7.
Ramsey has always had a punk reputation for cheap shots and trash talk. Chase has a limit on how much trash he’ll put up with and won’t put up with the cheap shots to teammates that put them in harm’s way. It’s impossible to know what was said between the two players in the heat of battle because there’s a code that what gets said on the field stays on the field. That’s a code as old as the NFL. And players like to think they can settle matters on the field and not let it carry over. But in certain cases, they linger and this is obviously something the NFL has to keep a close eye on.
As far as Chase’s reputation being dirtied by Ramsey’s dirty play around the league and by other players, the receiver was almost defiant in his response.
“Nah, I could care less, for real,” Chase said. “At the end of the day, I don’t really have anything to prove with who I am. Either you like me or you don’t. I could care less. I’m still gonna go for it at the end of the day. I got kids. I got people to take care of, so I could really care less. I’m going out there. Be the same player I am, you know what I’m saying, and play football. Nobody gonna stop me from who I am.”
Chase learned that spitting is no way to stand up for teammates. Neither is punching and damaging a key tool in his arsenal for inflicting offensive pain on the opponent. He also learned that he doesn’t want to be paying $500,000 for a regrettable action. Another penalty, which he mentioned in his apology on IG, was being forced to watch the Bengal offense work against the Patriots, knowing he could’ve helped the Bengals win a game they desperately needed. But still, he watched that 26-20 loss Sunday.
“It wasn’t hard watching at the end of the day,” Chase said. “I guess I can finally say I know how Cincinnati fans feel. Watching the game, it was a little nerve-racking for me. Usually, when I’m in the game, it’s not nerve-racking but watching it, it was, yeah.”
