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Ben Baby, ESPN Staff Writer
CINCINNATI — Ja’Marr Chase thought the Cincinnati Bengals‘ performance last week against the Baltimore Ravens showed they are better than their one-win record suggests.
But as the star wide receiver said Thursday, the numbers don’t lie. The Bengals have dropped four of their first five games of the season and saw a win against the Ravens slip through their collective fingers in a 41-38 overtime defeat.
As far as Chase is concerned, the Bengals can’t wait any longer to show that they are better than a 1-4 team. That starts Sunday night in a prime-time matchup against the New York Giants.
“This has to be the game we set the standard, right here, and leave it all on the table,” Chase said in his news conference.
Cincinnati’s four losses have come by a combined 15 points. It’s the worst start to a season for the Bengals since 2019, which was coach Zac Taylor’s first year and the season that preceded quarterback Joe Burrow‘s arrival. The franchise drafted Burrow with the No. 1 overall pick in 2020 after Cincinnati finished with the league’s worst record the previous season.
Between their time in college at LSU and with the Bengals, Burrow and Chase have been on the field for six seasons. And none has been as prolific as this one.
Burrow is second in the league in Total QBR and is tops in the NFL in passing touchdowns with 12. Five of those TDs have been to Chase, who is tied for first in the league in that category and is second in receiving yards.
Cincinnati’s offense has been one of the best in the league, whereas the defense is ranked near the bottom in several key categories. However, Chase said he feels the team is on the cusp of a breakthrough.
“Everyone knows that we’re a great offensive team and we always start slow out [on] defense,” Chase said. “They always get it back at the end of the season and pick up their pace. I feel like it won’t be too long until we turn this thing around.”
That defense will have to contend with someone who shares a lot of similarities with Chase: Giants rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers, a fellow top-10 draft pick out of LSU who has drawn many comparisons to Cincinnati’s three-time Pro Bowler. Chase said the two trained and hung out together in the offseason. Chase sent Nabers a text at the beginning of the week regarding a jersey swap after Sunday’s game.
Whether Nabers plays this week remains to be seen. He did not practice Thursday as he remains in concussion protocol. Giants coach Brian Daboll told reporters that Nabers is in the “same spot” as Wednesday, when he also didn’t practice.
Nabers is tied for seventh in the league in receiving yards and has the most targets (35) of all players, despite missing last week’s game against the Seattle Seahawks with the concussion. If he does play, he’ll be going up against a Cincinnati defense that has allowed the fifth-highest Total QBR to opposing quarterbacks.
Cincinnati’s defense had a players-only meeting on Wednesday to underscore the need to play better after the loss to Baltimore. On Thursday, Bengals cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt spoke about shifting the narrative amid criticism in recent weeks.
“We’re trying to prove everybody wrong at the end of the day, but [also] prove ourselves right, bigger than anything,” Taylor-Britt said. “Everybody in this locker room is the only people that believe in us. We got to keep it that way.”
Since 1966, which is known as the Super Bowl era, less than 6% of the teams that have started with a 1-4 record have made the playoffs, according to ESPN Research. Chase said that, given how the team set the tone early against Baltimore, last week should have been the game to spark the Bengals’ season after a slow start. He said he feels like it must happen this week against New York.
“I know we can do it just because [of] the people we have around us,” Chase said. “No one in this locker room wants to quit or has quit in them.”