Ja'Marr Chase Camp Update — August 16: Twenty-Two Touchdowns Is the Stated Goal

Ja'Marr Chase has one goal this season, and he said it out loud: Randy Moss's single-season receiving touchdown record. "Honestly, man, it's the only goal that I have for myself going forward now, is just to get 22, 23 touchdowns," he told NFL Network on August 10, per Arye Pulli at Bengals On SI. Three days later, in Thursday's preseason opener against Detroit, Joe Burrow's longest completion of the night was a 16-yarder to Chase during the starters' opening work, per the bengals.com recap and James Rapien at Bengals On SI.

Our June preview built the case on two legs. First, that Chase's volume is the asset that carries forward: a career-high 185 targets last season, caught at a 68 percent clip from backup quarterbacks, on a team going nowhere — and targets are the stickiest stat in the sport. Second, that his eight touchdowns were the anomaly, the lowest scoring rate of his career on a mountain of volume, and that the whole open question on this player was, functionally, Joe Burrow's toe. Get the quarterback back, we argued, and the touchdown rebound comes with him — his own 17-score season two years ago showed what this exact volume converts to.

This week touched both legs. Burrow started, played 13 healthy snaps, and his best throw found Chase — a small sample, deliberately small, but it's the connection the whole season rests on, working in a real stadium in a real game. And Chase's touchdown talk isn't evidence, but it tells you where his own head is: he knows the scores are the part of his line that went missing, and he's hunting them. He also kept it grounded in the same interview: "My goal is to be better than what I was the last day."

Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — the volume case was never in doubt, and the one load-bearing assumption, a healthy Burrow throwing him the ball, showed up on the field Thursday and looked fine doing it.

Two things to check next week: whether Chase gets red-zone work if the starters play longer in preseason game two, and Burrow's continued clean bill of health, because that toe is still the whole question. We'll check next Sunday.

_Data via nflverse._