Ja'Marr Chase Says Bengals Should Play Starters in Preseason to Avoid Costly Slow Starts

Chase appeared to convince himself that playing in the preseason was key to early success, in an exchange with reporters at OTAs.

James Williams #52 of the Tennessee Titans tackles Ja'Marr Chase #1 of the Cincinnati Bengals in the first half at Nissan Stadium in Nashville on Dec. 15, 2024. Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase wants the team’s starters to play in the preseason.

The Bengals have had slow starts in each of the past three seasons, and have started 0-2 or worse in all but one of Zac Taylor’s six seasons as head coach. At a press gaggle after OTAs practice on Tuesday, Chase pointed out that he and his fellow first-stringers have not played meaningful snaps in any of his years as a pro, and said playing time was the key to avoid stumbling out of the gate.

The first reporter directly asked Chase how to start playing fast at the beginning of the season.

“I don’t know,” the receiver replied bluntly. “We’re going to have to find out when we start playing. I don’t know how we start playing fast.”

Slow starts have dogged the Bengals for years. Last season, Cincinnati started the season 0-3 with losses to the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Washington Commanders. In 2023, the Bengals went 0-2 to start the season and 1-3 through four weeks. They went 0-2 again in 2022. In 2021—Chase’s rookie year—the Bengals went 1-1 in the first two weeks. In 2020, the Bengals went 0-2 again, then tied the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 3. In Taylor’s first year as head coach in 2019, the Bengals did not win a game until Week 12.

That slow start was especially painful for the Bengals this past season, because they finished with a 9-8 record and barely missed the playoffs. The Bengals beat the #7 seed Denver Broncos in a 30-24 overtime thriller in Week 17; had the Broncos lost to the Kansas City Chiefs the following week, the Bengals would have snuck into the postseason after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 19-17 in their regular season finale.

The Week 1 loss to the lowly Patriots has been cited as the one game that should have made the difference, but seven of the Bengals’ eight losses were by one possession: a 6-point loss to New England (16-10); a one-point loss to Kansas City (26-25); a five-point loss to Washington (38-33); a 41-38 overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens; a second, one-point loss to Baltimore (35-34); a seven-point loss to the Los Angeles Chargers (37-24); and a six-point loss to the Steelers (44-38). Had any of those games gone the opposite way, the Bengals would have made the playoffs.

Reporters then questioned Chase if he planned on playing in the preseason.

“That’s not up to me,” he replied.

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be out there.

“I don’t mind like, a series, but that’s literally all we do.”

But from there, Chase’s mind appeared to change on the topic in real time.

“You don’t really feel mentally ready for a game like that,” Chase said. “For me, I don’t think I do. I’m not gonna speak for anybody else.”

A reporter then asked a follow-up question to clarify that in Chase’s opinion, resting starters during preseason does not affect how the team starts out in the regular season.

“How did we start my rookie year?” Chase asked in response.

The reporter noted their 1-1 start and 3-1 record through four weeks.

“Did we play in the preseason?” Chase followed up.

The reporter appeared to say they only played one series.

“What about the next year?” Chase asked.

The reporter mentioned their 0-2 start and said they did not play in the preseason.

“What about the following year?” Chase asked again.

The reporter mentioned 2024’s 0-2 start, and that, again, starters did not play in the preseason.

“Sounds like we need to play preseason, huh?” Chase said, joking that he had asked the reporter questions until he answered his own question himself.

Chase himself infamously struggled with a case of the dropsies in his rookie year preseason. He dropped four consecutive passes thrown his way, including a screen pass in the final preseason game of 2021.

At the time, Chase attributed his drop issues to adjusting to actually seeing an NFL ball in the air.

“The ball is different because it is bigger,” Chase said in 2021, via the team website. “It doesn’t have the white stripes on the side, so you can’t see the ball coming from the tip point so you actually have to look for the strings on the ball at the top, which is hard to see because whole ball is brown and you have the six strings that are white. But for the most part, just have to get used to it and find out what I am comfortable with catching.”

But he has been able to adjust to an NFL ball rather well. Chase has surpassed 1,000 yards in each of his four seasons as a pro, and won the receiving triple crown last year with 127 receptions for 1,708 yards and 17 touchdowns. He has been rewarded for his efforts with a four-year, $161 million contract, making him the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL.