The Bengals’ coaches will tell anyone who’ll listen that their receiver room is unique. And, yes, they are talking about how Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd can tie defenses into a pretzel and give coaches headaches trying to figure out how they can get unknotted.
But it’s more than just the otherworldly collection of talent on display at every practice in July and August, the same way it is on the field in the fall.
It’s also in how they fit together, and treat each other, and that growing dynamic in the position room is one that hit Chase almost right away, after the Bengals took him with the No. 5 pick in 2021. He’d been in the building for barely a week and was assigned, as the rest of the rookies are during the offseason, to the visiting locker room at what was then called Paul Brown Stadium. It wasn’t long before Boyd and safety Jessie Bates III came for him.
“I felt the love off the jump,” Chase says. “They put me in the rookie locker room for maybe three days. And the older guys told me immediately to get my stuff and move straight in. … The next day, I walked in here and I had all my stuff in here. I felt the love right away. Everybody knew what I was coming to do. They felt the love. … That’s the best thing that they could have done for me.”
It was especially important for Chase through the much-fretted-over period in camp that summer when he had trouble hanging on to the ball. He knew the guys around him had his back, so he never felt insecure about how those around him viewed his struggles. “They were encouraging me to keep my head up and keep pushing,” he says.
Six months later, Chase was one of the best players on a Super Bowl team. And since, his room has evolved into the league’s very best.
So as part of my trip to Cincinnati, I sat down with Chase and Higgins to talk about it.
Sam Greene/The Enquirer/USA TODAY Network
Sports Illustrated: How have things evolved with you and Tee, and your roles in the offense?
Ja’Marr Chase: I guess you could just say we know who has the hot hand at times. Whoever’s hot at the time, we’re encouraging them to keep it going and keep the hot streak going so they keep getting the ball. We know the next game, he’s getting doubled. That’s how we look at it because we know every other game, me and Tee, one of us is getting doubled. That’s when TB [Tyler Boyd] gotta step in and do his job. At the end of the day, it’s just knowing who has the hot hand and who can eat at that time.
SI: How do you raise the bar for each other?
JC: We do the competitive stuff a little bit. At first, me and Tee used to do touchdowns and stuff. We used to start off the season when I first got here my rookie year, a little competition. I was trying to introduce him to it because me and [LSU teammate] Justin [Jefferson], that’s how we pushed each other, was competition. ... Overall, he’s a good guy to be around. He’s a great teammate.
SI: How does Tyler set the tone for you guys as a vet?
JC: As a vet for him, he does vet things. It’s a little different. I see him do stuff, and I couldn’t do it at the time yet. He opened the door a little bit for me to at least look like I’m a vet. TB does his own thing, but I still be on him like he be on me. That’s the thing about me; I’ll be on everybody. I don’t care if I’m a rookie. I want to push everybody to be great. I want everybody around me to be better. That’s the type of guy I am.
SI: Who’s the No. 1 receiver here?
JC: S---, I don’t know. I’ll let the people decide.
SI: I guess the answer is there are two No. 1s?
JC: Yeah, of course. Tee gets doubled; I get doubled. It happens all the time. He’s a red zone threat; I’m a red zone threat. We both get the same treatment.
SI: Is there something about the two of you that’s different, that makes one fit the other?
JC: Tee’s much taller than me. He gets out of his breaks good to be that tall, and that’s a hard thing to do. He knows how to get open. He’s got good hands. His radius for the ball is so big that you just throw it to him, and he’ll always catch it. That’s the great thing about Tee. I would say about me, I’ve got good ball-tracking skills throughout the air. Tee does, too. That, together, is a great thing to have.
Tee Higgins: Obviously, the size differences. I just feel like when one guy is focused on him, that gives the chance for me and TB to go do what we need to do. I feel like that’s how we complement each other. We’re not selfish. We’re rooting each other on. One guy can go crazy, and another guy can have a few yards, and you’re still happy as long as you get a W.
SI: What can he do that you can’t?
JC: Nothing. We all do everything.
SI: Tee, what can he do that you can’t?
TH: I do a lot that he can’t. [Laughs.] I feel like we can do a lot of the same things. Even though I’m a tall guy, I still got the breaks like he can. Even though he’s shorter than me, he can still go up and jump over a defender and grab the ball.
SI: You’re up for a contract. How bad do you want to stay together?
TH: We definitely want to. At the end of the day, we definitely want to. Everything is up to the man above. He might have something in store for me at a different place; you never know. But I want to stay together with these guys. They’re my brothers now, and we treat each other like family. I definitely want to stay here.
SI: What’s the best part of Tee’s game?
JC: His routes. He’s a tall receiver. That’s one of the hardest things about being a tall receiver is really getting yourself open. Especially at his height, you look like Megatron [Calvin Johnson], Julio [Jones], those guys know how to drop their waist and get out of breaks. That’s the main thing that’s going to get them open. He’s one of the receivers that can do it that’s tall.
SI: What’s the best part of Ja’Marr’s game?
TH: What I respect about his game is how he adjusts to different balls that’s being thrown at him, whether it be a back shoulder or a low ball, he can adjust really well. He can do it at the last minute. I respect that.
SI: You made one of those catches, Ja’Marr, that drew a reaction, where you came with late hands and bodied the defender …
JC: That’s key to being a receiver, late hands. If you get early hands, the DB knows the ball’s coming. … I just saw the ball come a little shorter. What I did was give the DB a slight bump to slow him down and let the ball just fall right in my pocket.
SI: And I saw you make a bunch of catches where you’re running one way, and you use your hands the other way to pluck—it looked like something you’ve worked a lot on.
TH: Yeah, for sure, different placements. Our assistant receiver coach, Brad [Kragthorpe], he puts the balls in different places to where we got to torque our bodies in ways that we don’t torque it all the time. It just helps us out in those prepractices and postpractices.
SI: So you said all that stuff about being unselfish, but everyone wants the ball, right?
TH: Of course, everyone wants the ball. It’s whoever got that hot hand, whoever got that hot start—we know it’s going to be that guy’s day. We know when the ball comes our way, we just got to make a play with it. At the end of the day, if Joe [Burrow] is feeling hot and he knows Ja’Marr is hot, he’s going to go to him. We’re still going to get our opportunities in that same game; we just have to make the most of it.
Katie Stratman/USA TODAY Sports
SI: And I’d assume with Joe out there, you’re basically alive on every play, so it’s not like you can just say it’s someone else’s ball on a certain play?
TH: You never know with Joe. He’ll check it down to the running back, and the running back could be the fifth option. Joe scans everybody, and whoever’s open, that’s who he’s giving the ball to.
SI: Do you feel lucky to be in this situation, with each other and with Joe?
JC: I wouldn’t say lucky. I’d say it’s destiny. Everything’s done for a reason. We got put in a position for a reason, and we just capitalize on what you got.
SI: What’s the next step for you guys as a group?
TH: I think we just got to keep building where we left off. I wouldn’t even say it’s the next step. We just have to keep being the elite receivers that we are, the elite offensive group that we are and just keep pushing to be great. Honestly, Super Bowl.
SI: What’s out there for you guys as far as getting better?
JC: Offseason-wise, I feel like that’s more of a personal issue—you got to know your strengths and your weaknesses in the offseason, know exactly what you want to work on, how you want to work on it. Small things and just constantly catching on the offseason. As an offense, it’s building more chemistry and being more elite at our position. Just be ourselves. We can’t overemphasize on stuff that we can’t do. We just got to do the stuff that we’re here to do.
SI: What has your receivers coach, Troy Walters, done to create the environment?
JC: Troy was always on me about the plays, catching, routes, basically everything. He was always on me about it. I even introduced him to a couple drills to help us, to help me get back to my normal self, because I was off for a whole year. He welcomed me with open hands. Him and I used to have one-on-one meetings just to get to know each other. That’s how our relationship grew.
SI: How has Joe made up for the missed time, losing a good piece of every offseason he’s been in the pros.
TH: We got three years with each other. Me four. [Ja’Marr]’s been in college with him, so he’s at five or six. We’ve got years under [our] belt. He knows how we run routes. He knows where we’re going to be at. It’s night and day now.
SI: Is there stuff he’s doing now while he’s hurt to make sure he doesn’t lose time?
TH: I know that today he grabbed me and TB on the side and showed us a route from two days ago, said he wants us here, how to run a certain route. He’s still watching film and pulling us aside and telling us how to do things.
SI: And I’m sure he’s still speaking up in the meeting room?
JC: 100 percent. He’s been doing that since I first got here. They look at him and want him to speak up a lot. Since I’ve known him so long, I know what he expects. I usually like going to him and telling him what I like, too. That way we can get our differences the same, that we can add it together.
SI: Do you think this could be the start of a dynasty? Is that out there for this group?
TH: I definitely think that can be out there. If they can handle it upstairs, where all that can happen, you never know.
