How will the Bucs stop Ja’Marr Chase?
So Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase is on a Hall of Fame track. Actually, he’s on a greatest-of-all-time track.
Chase has five seasons of 1,000 or more yards to start his career. In fact, he’s got 6,837 yards in those five years. That’s about 1,350 per season.
Chase also won the “triple crown” of receiving in 2024, leading the league in catches (127), yards (1,708) and touchdowns (17).
On Sunday, Chase will set out to terrorize Bucs cornerbacks that aren’t exactly on his All-Pro level.
In case Zyon McCollum and Jacob Parrish aren’t aware, or Benjamin Morrison (gasp!), 26-year-old Chase is locked in and he told SiriusXM NFL Radio he’s got a couple of personal goals for this season.
> “The only thing for real, like personal goal-wise, more yards this year but it’s not really nothing too crazy — and probably breaking the touchdown record for most \[in a season\],” Chase said. “I think it’s what, 22?”
Chase was off by one TD catch. Randy Moss has the single-season record of 23 with Tom Brady and the Belicheats in 2007.
> “… It’s possible, it’s a possible chance, man, but that comes with a lot of consistency. So that’s gonna be the biggest thing for me this year going forward is to show a lot of consistency.”
Ahh, “consistency,” that’s been the trouble area for Bucs cornerbacks the past couple of seasons, especially McCollum.
So how exactly will Todd Bowles to try and contain Chase? Fellow Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has 21 touchdown catches over the past two seasons. He’s a problem, too.
Huge test coming for the overhauled Bucs defense on Sunday. It’s almost an unfair task for a lot of guys playing together for the first time.