CINCINNATI — Patience has not always been a defining trait of Ja’Marr Chase. As a matter of fact, many star NFL receivers are known for their impatience and their need to have a seemingly endless number of touches a game.
The last two weeks Chase has learned how to be ready for his moment and not lose focus of the bigger picture. It’s starting to pay off for both receiver and the Bengals.
He finally got it in the second half when Joe Burrow found him on a corner flare route to the end zone for a key touchdown that gave the Bengals the cushion they were looking for in a rock fight kind of a game with a team that has given them fits over the years.
The touchdown reception was Chase’s NFL-leading sixth of the season.
Two weeks ago against the Giants, Chase had two catches for 19 yards before finishing with five grabs for 72 yards, including a 33-yarder. Last week, when the Bengals didn’t have an offensive score in the first half, Chase had one run of 11 yards and three catches for 28 yards. He finished with two more grabs and a total of 55 yards, including the 18-yard TD.
Chase leads the NFL with 620 receiving yards through seven weeks. He’s tied for the lead with six receiving TDs.
“I’m playing pretty lit right now,” Chase said.
Chase, in his fourth NFL season, knows that Joe Burrow will find ways of getting him the ball. So will head coach Zac Taylor. But that sometimes requires waiting for the right moment.
“Yeah it gets overwhelming. Sometimes you know say especially as an athlete or a person who always wants the ball in his hands,” Chase told me. “But I’ve got to be patient as always as every other game goes, just like having cloud (coverage) the whole game. I’ve got to be patient. Just take the gimmes. But I’ve just got to be ready whenever my number’s called.”
Now, more than ever, requires Chase to be patient. He had to learn that the hard way in the offseason with excruciating contract talks that wore on his last nerve. But perhaps the silver lining has been teaching his mind to just focus on what he can on the football field. When on the field, he can only be ready to be productive. And no one been producing more on the field this season than Chase.
“Yeah, yeah. I mean I know that,” Chase said of controlling his emotions and being patient. “I always understood it. I was trying not to let my emotions get in the way of stuff like that from happening though.”
The one thing he can control is setting his own goals and going about reaching them. He’s done that before each season. While not disclosing all of the information on the post-it notes on his bathroom mirror, he did let on this week that he wants to reach 1,500 yards receiving this season, which would exceed his franchise mark of 1,455 in 2021.
While he didn’t reveal it, 15 could also be the goal he would like to reach in touchdowns, which would be two more than his career best of 13, also set in 2021.
“I started my freshman year in college,” Chase said of his goal-setting tradition. “I actually don’t even put Pro Bowl up there anymore. I put first team (AP) All-Pro. But I just put that up there to just let myself know what I want to do every day.
“It keeps me focused every day. Some days you don’t have it. Those days you feel sluggish, you don’t might not want to be at work and some days, you just sit there and just read it. It lets you know where you’re mentally at, if you’re ready for the day or not, that’s how I feel.”
