‘We’re the Team To Beat in the AFC’ – Is Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase Super Confident or Delusional?

CINCINNATI – Ja’Marr Chase didn’t get a new contract this offseason, but he does appear to have found some fresh perspective.

It was just three football weeks ago – Week 17 of the 2023 season – when the Cincinnati Bengals Pro Bowl wide receiver poked the defending Super Bowl champions with some trash talk that got personal.

The Chiefs heard it and let him know about it during the game, only for Chase to double down after Kansas City beat the Bengals, 25-17, to eliminate them from the playoff race.

Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase Makes Waves Again With Comments Before Playing Chiefs

Thursday, Chase stayed away from calling out individuals.

But he still made it a point to decorate the red and gold bulletin board inside the Kansas City locker room.

“There’s not no ‘if.’ We are the team to beat in the AFC, and we know it,” Chase said. “We gotta act like it, and we gotta play like it, too.”

Confidence is a hell of a drug.

So is delusion.

Which one is Chase dabbling in? We’ll find out Sunday.

Chase is either going to sound like a prophet or a nitwit.

But no matter how much he believes the Bengals are the team to beat, and no matter how realistic their chances are of backing it up, it’s an odd statement to make days before playing the team that has won the last two Super Bowls and three of the last five, not to mention the last two head-to-head games against the Bengals.

Especially after coming off a last-place finish in 2023 and dropping the season opener as a 7.5-point favorite at home.

But then again, that was kind of the point of Chase’s message.

This can be a statement win.

“I just told the receivers that we couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to bounce back from a game,” Chase said. “We couldn’t ask for a better chance for the receivers to go crazy, for the quarterback to go crazy, for the whole offense to just be ourselves again.

“This is a chance for us to make a mark right here,” he added.

Not only would a win Listerine away last week’s 16-10 loss to the New England Patriots, it would put the rest of the AFC on notice. Maybe not the lofty roost of the ‘team to beat,’ but certainly in the mix.

It also would make Joe Burrow 4-1 against Patrick Mahomes as a starter in regular season and postseason games.

At 3-1, Burrow is one of three quarterbacks who have beaten Mahomes three times. The other two are Tom Brady (3-3) and Josh Allen (3-4).

Chase knows a victory against the Chiefs changes the narrative on the whole season, which is why he felt comfortable saying what he said.

He not only stayed away from calling out individuals the way he has in the past, he heaped as much praise on the Chiefs as he has any opponent in the past, including some flowers for former Kansas City cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, whom he sparred with in December.

“They always do a good job of coming up with good schemes against. I feel like they are one of the best teams to scheme against us and know what we’re doing.

“The defensive coordinator (Steven Spagnuolo) is a great defensive coordinator. I can say that for a fact,” Chase continued. “He uses all of his weapons and secondary skills with the players they’ve played. Now that he has Sneed gone, Sneed did a good job of knowing his leverage and help when we played against each other. I just feel like (Spagnuolo) does a good job.”

Chase said he knows the “we’re the team to beat” comment is going to get all kinds of reactions.

And he doesn’t care.

“We’re not worried about outsiders. We’re not worried about none of that,” he said. “All that noise y’all making, we see it, we hear it, but we don’t worry about it. At the end of the day, it’s about the team and not the outside people not on the field telling us what to do on the field. I’ll let them stay outside and make their own comments.”