Ja’Marr Chase went up for a deep ball from Joe Burrow at Cincinnati Bengals practice on Tuesday and came down wrong.
What followed was the sequence nobody watching a training camp practice ever wants to see. There is no diagnosis yet, but every fantasy football manager holding the consensus overall WR1 is now waiting on an update. Here is what we know.
What Happened to Ja’Marr Chase?
Chase landed awkwardly trying to catch the deep ball. He tried to walk it off and then went down to his knees. Shortly after, he was back up and he limped off the field.
Ja’Marr Chase went down on this deep ball from Joe Burrow.
Second video shows him up and walking. #Bengals @FOX19 pic.twitter.com/IyyyPKiTSy
— Jeremy Rauch (@FOX19Jeremy) August 25, 2026
This is a non-contact knee injury, and the video certainly does not look good. Naturally, we fear the worst.
The rash of injuries across the NFL right now is very frustrating. I cannot remember a training camp with this many of them. Coming off the Ashton Jeanty scare on Sunday, we are naturally hesitant to make any predictions about what this could be.
Obviously, there is a chance Chase tore his ACL. We have seen it happen on plays like this one before. The fact that he was able to walk off under his own power is not indicative of the severity of the injury, though it is certainly better that he could walk it off than if he could not.
Something encouraging is happening on the sideline, though. ESPN’s Ben Baby reported that Chase is not receiving any treatment. He is obviously not practicing anymore. But the lack of medical attention suggests we may have averted disaster.
Ja’Marr Chase is again not receiving any treatment after going down earlier.
Has not returned to drills but is not getting any other medical attention. pic.twitter.com/cfYo8FyBLf
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) August 25, 2026
An early professional read points in the same direction. Jeff Mueller, a doctor of physical therapy and injury analyst for Fantasy Points, tweeted that he is “somewhat optimistic that this is just a hyperextension/bone bruise injury without ligament trauma.”
If Mueller has this right, Chase is not in jeopardy for Week 1. Should he be wrong, a season-ending injury is in play.
Update:Â It appears Mueller nailed it. After practice, Chase said he hyperextended his knee and could have kept practicing if necessary. He is all good.
What the Ja’Marr Chase Injury Means for Fantasy Football
Chase is the consensus overall WR1. There is no version of this where the news does not matter, because he is the first receiver off the board in essentially every format.
If Chase misses a significant amount of time, Tee Higgins would vault up draft boards, and rightfully so. Higgins has been going in the fourth round as a fringe top-15 receiver, which is a price built entirely around him being the second option in Cincinnati. Remove Chase from that equation, and Higgins is a completely different asset.
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None of that is actionable yet. For now, we are not making any changes to our fantasy rankings, and we wait for an update from the team.
As of this writing, based on the available information, I share in Mueller’s read that Chase should be okay.
