JaMarr Chase, Jalen Ramsey together again at Bengals-Rams practice
CINCINNATI — Before Ja’Marr Chase and Jalen Ramsey found each other on the practice field for the first of two joint practices between the Rams and Bengals, Chase made sure to find Ramsey for a conversation.
He didn’t want to talk about the Super Bowl or life as a top-five pick in the NFL.
He wanted to talk shop. Specifically, he wanted to talk “catch” technique.
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Watching Ramsey and experiencing him in the Super Bowl, Chase noticed a style of corner Ramsey played that he hadn’t seen from anyone else in the NFL. Ramsey stood 8 to 10 yards off the line of scrimmage and would “catch” the receiver if he tried to run a go or double move. Otherwise, he watches the quarterback and prepares to drive on underneath routes.
Chase wondered if he’d see more corners try to play it, so he went directly to the source on the nuances of the style.
“I’ve never really seen anybody do that until him, and it’s been on film all year,” Chase said. “Basically, I got to adjust to DBs that want to play catch technique with their body and I got to not make a flag for missing their body — that’s how stupid it sounds, trust me.”
He correlates it to the defense trying to draw a charge in basketball.
And no, Chase doesn’t like the idea of drawing a flag for a player waiting to catch him in his route, but he’s trying to figure out ways around it. That made his meeting with Ramsey over these two days a particularly fun one as Super Bowl LVI reconvened Wednesday.
Chase calls Ramsey the most physical corner in the league, and that explains why he’s the only one using this style. It also explains why these days can prove to be so valuable for the Offensive Rookie of the Year.
The idea of watching Chase and Ramsey go one-on-one for two days goes beyond just telling your grandkids one day what you witnessed. It’s about gaining experience against a unique style that other teams could try to emulate in brainstorming ways to stop him.
“For both guys, they’ll face corners and receivers that maybe have similar traits, they’re similar types of players,” Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said. “I’m not gonna say they’re on those levels of those players, but sometimes you face a big, physical corner that can push guys around. So I think that serves you well to go against somebody like that. Receiver, same point. In Ja’Marr’s case, a strong receiver, and what that feels like for a DB. There’s probably work that those guys can take away from this kind of stuff that helps them throughout the season, depending on the different opponents they’re gonna face.”
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The only bummer about Wednesday was they didn’t face each other directly on the field all that much. It happened periodically, but Ramsey spent most of his day playing inside and zone coverages rather than following Chase around the field in man.
It was exactly what Chase expected because he’d seen it before.
“They did that in the championship game,” Chase said. “I was expecting exactly that. It wasn’t him on me. I was expecting to see the same thing.”
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There were moments when the two noted stars found each other over the two hours that focused primarily on 11-on-11 situational football, including high red zone, low red zone, get back on track and one-minute drill.
When they did, it lived up to the hype.
The most notable play of the day for Chase came on an outside route to the sideline. Ramsey was waiting in catch technique with eyes on the quarterback, but Joe Burrow threw a bullet that Chase snagged with one hand and with Ramsey draped on him near the sideline.
“First off, it was a perfect pass by Joe,” Chase said. “It was like (the Michael Jordan) effect. He helps people play better when he’s out there. Ramsey got a break on it first because he’s got eyes on the quarterback. Just had to block him off my body and make a contested catch.”
Somebody got worked. #Bengals @Enquirer
Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase (1) completes a one-handed catch as LA Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey (5) defends during a joint practice Wednesday.
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That marked one of the most notable wins, but Ramsey had more than his fair share of victories.
The day started with seven-on-seven in the low red zone, and Ramsey ended up on Chase for back-to-back plays. Ramsey blanketed Chase both times — one ended in an incompletion to Tee Higgins and the other saw Tyler Boyd break open on the back line for an easy touchdown.
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The catch technique showed up again later in 11-on-11. Chase ran his route directly into Ramsey, and as the two collided, he turned back to Burrow, who hit him for a completion on what looked to be a protection breakdown in the backfield.
It was exactly the type of issue Chase is trying to figure out. He says all he can try to do is make Ramsey miss when he runs at it, but if that doesn’t happen it can end up looking like that particular rep.
“Push his ass off,” Chase said of what his technique would be against it. “Honestly, I don’t have a technique — just try to get open and fight, be physical. That’s my job. Catch the pass. I can’t push off, but I can make separation in small ways. I need to watch the film and see how he plays it because I still want to learn more about this catch technique and how he does it.”
Read observations of the joint practice from The Athletic’s Rams writer Jourdan Rodrigue.
Most of the 11-on-11 period saw Ramsey making plays elsewhere. He nearly had an interception on a ball Burrow directed to Tee Higgins. He was inches away and sprinting toward a 99-yard pick-six had he held on.
Burrow tried a different method later on, trying to loft a pass over the top of Ramsey to Higgins at the front pylon, only this time Ramsey went to the sky for the pass breakup.
“Ja’Marr is a good player, but we knew that,” said Ramsey, who has rarely been known to give a compliment to other players during his career. “It didn’t take us this practice to figure that out. We knew that already. It’s not just him, though; they’ve got a solid receiving corps. He’s obviously top dog, but they got a solid receiving corps.”
Chase’s best play of the day came away from Ramsey, where he ran a post and Burrow hit him in stride between the corner and safety. Had it been a game, it could have been Chase taking it to the house, but the finish to the play was left to the imagination.
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“Ja’Marr did a good job,” Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said. “He won some, Ja’Marr won some.”
Fittingly, as the day came to a close, Ramsey and Chase once again found each other working on the outside, just as was the case 192 days ago at SoFi Stadium. The image of Ramsey on the ground as Burrow was tossed down by Aaron Donald still haunts the Bengals and their fans. On this day, with third-and-short and the seconds ticking down on the end-of-game situation, Burrow looked at Chase, who tried to run a double move on Ramsey.
The matchup met at the contact point once again. Chase powered through the contact and looked to gain a step up the sideline. Only, Burrow had to throw it out of bounds behind him as he felt pressure before the route came to fruition.
This wasn’t the same route as the Super Bowl, that was a straight “go” ball. Still, as different as this environment was, in some ways, it ended the same.
Whether on Thursday or sometime in the future, maybe the result will be different. That’s an understated advantage of this day for two of the best in the sport. It’s as much about the meetings off the field as those on it.
“A lot of DBs are different,” Chase said. “When you are facing one of the best like him you got to hopefully come back strong in the regular season and playoffs and remember what you talked about and go off what you learned from each other and make y’all better.”
(Photo: Jeff Dean / Associated Press)
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