CINCINNATI — While head coach Zac Taylor is still calling plays for one of the most high-powered offenses in football, Dan Pitcher has his pulse on every facet of the unit that in many ways defines the Bengals.
And after Joe Burrow, one player that helps define that image is Ja’Marr Chase. Coming off a triple crown season, Pitcher has seen no let up in Chase’s preparation and approach. In fact, the Bengals offensive coordinator sees Chase’s input becoming more refined and pointed, something he noted after Sunday’s camp practice.
It’s the communication aspect and the feedback he gives Joe Burrow, Taylor and Pitcher that helps refine the Bengals machine into the high-performance racing machine capable of lapping defenses this season.
“He’s been such a good communicator with me, with Zac, with Joe,” Pitcher said of Chase. “I just really see the guy taking strides in his overall understanding of what we’re trying to get done, how he is able to diagnose the defense, react in the moment, give us really good feedback after the fact, suggest things that might help him do his job. ‘Hey, when you line me up here, I’m getting this look. We got to make sure we’re calling enough of this to keep the defense honest.’
“Those are things that, the steps he’s taking as a veteran who’s now played a lot of football and is the best in the world at what he does, it’s fun to see. It’s fun to be around.”
Chase said early in camp that the different looks from new defensive coordinator Al Golden has helped him and he, in turn, is enjoying challenging the group of corners and defensive backs in camp.
Then there is the other side of the spectrum. Fairly or not, when Jermaine Burton doesn’t show up at a morning camp practice after a long afternoon workout the day before in full pads, suspicions arise. His history from his rookie year is what it is. And on Sunday, he didn’t show on the practice field when the team took the field for the 10 am workout.
There was no immediate word from the team before later in practice the team issued a statement that Burton was excused for an undisclosed injury and is day-to-day. The team publicly isn’t expressing concern but it’s a storyline that all parties were hoping to avoid, especially after a promising spring of OTAs and minicamp, training camp and a preseason game in which he produced an impressive 32-yard punt return and a 24-yard kick return.
“I thought he made a lot of plays early in camp,” Pitcher said. “Jermaine is best when you can get him in a true one-on-one matchup down the sideline, he can track the ball in the air. He is got tremendous ball skills, didn’t have a lot of opportunity to show that the other night. So again, the thing, the single word I keep coming back to with Jermaine is just consistency, right? (He didn’t get) a lot of opportunity the other night. How do we respond? How do we go about our day-to-day professional job and we’ll just continue to be the emphasis with them.”
Later, Pitcher expanded on availability being the most important ability.
“When you’re unable to practice, obviously that’s frustrating,” Pitcher said. “So I just know he’s day-to-day, so I don’t know if he’s going to be back out here (Tuesday) or when, but when you’re not able to perform physically, that’s only part of your job. So it’s staying in the book, it’s being engaged in meetings, it’s doing all those things that we expect all of our guys.”
Pitcher has been pleased so far with the development of the team’s run game in camp, with Chase Brown, Tahj Brooks and veteran Samaje Perine. On Thursday, Brown ran it five times for 23 yards, a 4.6 yards per carry clip. Brooks had 10 runs for 26 yards and overall, the Bengals carried 19 times for 57 yards, with Brown showing the most burst.
“I’m pleased with it. I really am,” Pitcher said. “Again, we’re rounding out the camp process of discovering who we’re going to be in that phase, but I think we’ve gotten some really good returns on some of the different scheme emphasis stuff that we had in the off season. Chase Brown, I think’s doing an outstanding job. Taj has really showed up. He’s got patience, he’s got vision, he’s got a really good pace to him, to the line of scrimmage and then a shiftiness and a burst through traffic. So happy with the backs. I think by and large, we’ve done a good job upfront and we’ll just continue to take in that everyday practice is some more evidence for invest more in this, invest less than this vice versa. But I think it’s moving in the right direction and we just got to keep it going that way.
The key to the run game will be early in downs and in short-yardage situation, where the Bengals have struggled running the ball the last several seasons.
“Our normal down plan is to stay in normal downs and that’s every single team’s plan,” Pitcher said. “So, we’re not inventing anything with that mentality, but I thought we did a good job of staying on schedule, making sure that as many downs you can snap the football and have the entire availability of your call sheet there that the defense has to respect and defend. It gives you the best chance to have success Once they can start eliminating things based on the situation that you put yourself in, now they have a little bit of an advantage. So that’s obviously stay on schedule, you’ll be in good shape.”
The Bengals identity on offense is defined by its best player, naturally, in Joe Burrow. But that’s not to say the Bengals can’t lean harder on the run game in 2025, after improving to 4.1 yards per carry in 2024, sixth-best in the NFL. But Pitcher is looking harder at the when than the how many.
“So how many times when we hand the ball off does the result of that play keep us on schedule? So does a first and 10 handoff get us to a second and five? Does a second and six handoff get us to a third and two or lesser conversion? What’s our negative play rate? Are we maintaining our goal to be the best team in the league in terms of avoiding negative runs? And then how do we get an explosive player like Chase Brown, enough opportunity in space to hit the home run when somebody’s out of a gap? And so that’s the balance and sometimes you have to take on some risk schematically to create those situations,” Pitcher said. “So, our decision is how much of that risk do we want to take on? How much of that opportunity can we create for him in the past game where we don’t maybe have to take on as much of the risk and we just kind of go from there.”
Other Pitcher takeaways from Sunday:
On Lucas Patrick at right guard:
“I thought he played well in the game. There’s a couple that he wants back. Obviously there’s a third down quick beat that has been a focus for us that we can’t have and there are a few other things that got a little leaky towards the end of the down, but Lucas plays with great urgency. He plays with great technique, he plays with great awareness. He’s a leader, he’s a competitor and he’s practiced really well for us. And I thought minus a couple plays the other night, I thought he played well.”
On Noah Fant in practice and looking forward to preseason debut in Washington Aug. 18:
“Noah, obviously you guys see him. He’s a big guy. He’s explosive, he’s fast, he’s powerful, got big powerful strides and he can function as a blocker in 12 (one back, two TEs) personnel in a number of different roles. He’s kind of drinking from a fire hose right now a little bit as you could imagine. We’re on the 600 level course of this six hand bangles, Joe Burrow offense, and he’s trying to take it all in and he’s doing a good job with that. He’s putting in the work. We obviously have a vision for how we’re going to use him and how we’re going to use his skillset and you guys will get a chance to see that soon enough.”
On Jake Browning, who was 6-for-14 for 62 yards, 0 TDs and one interception:
“I mean his just full grasp of the offense, his numbers, whatever they were, what they were, his eyes were in the right place all the time. There’s a couple plays he wants back. Obviously, we can’t have a screen intercepted, but his eyes are in the right spot that the ball was going to go to, the place that the coverage dictated the ball should go to. And that’s because he understands the offense and he knows what we’re asking out of him. I know he wishes that the stat line was better and he wishes that we’re able to move down the field and score touchdowns, and I think we’ll do that with him on Monday night. But full grasp of the offense. Excellent. I mean, he’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever been around. He’ll be a phenomenal coach if he ever decides he wants to do it and he’s really, he’s an important part of what we do here.”
Bengals Camp Day 12:
* Jermaine Burton absent from Sunday practice, ‘day-to-day’ with undisclosed injury.
* Also not practicing were Dax Hill, Joseph Ossai, Geno Stone, Kendall Milton, Mike Gesicki, Trey Hendrickson, B.J. Hill, Cedric Johnson.
* Heavy special teams day of work in full pads.
* Tee Higgins high-points a pass over DJ Turner in 7s.
* Joe Burrow ‘sacked’ by Myles Murphy on first 11s.
* Burrow leads offense length of field with heavy usage of tight ends Noah Fant and Tanner Hudson.
* Burrow scrambles on third-and-goal and found Chase Brown open in the end zone for 6.
* Chase Brown broke a big run through a big hole early in practice.
