Ja'Marr Chase Camp Update — August 23: Declined the Honor Over One Drop

Ja'Marr Chase caught six passes in Thursday's joint practice against the Bears, two of them in the red-zone drill, per Geoff Hobson at the team's site — a full starters-versus-starters session, the closest thing to real football Cincinnati's first unit has played this summer. Two days before that came the week's better story about where his head is. In Tuesday's final full practice before Chicago arrived, Chase scored a red-zone touchdown when Joe Burrow escaped pressure and found him, then declined the staff's player-of-the-day honors over a drop he would not excuse, per Hobson. Tight end Mike Gesicki's response, per the same report: "I respect that." Gesicki also described the gravity that makes Chase's volume everyone else's tailwind: "He was the reason I was open on my deep ball... when we feed Ja'Marr, someone else becomes open."

Chase then sat Saturday's 27 to nine win over the Bears with Burrow and the rest of the starters, per Hobson, which is standard August handling and not news. The receivers who played were auditioning for roster spots, not for his.

For a first-time listener, the June preview's case was that Chase's target volume is the sticky asset — a career-high 185 targets last season, caught from backup quarterbacks — and the missing touchdowns were the piece a healthy Burrow restores. This week was that machine running in miniature: Burrow to Chase in the red zone on Tuesday, Chase working the red-zone period again on Thursday, the quarterback upright throughout. Practice reps are practice reps, but they were the right ones.

What to watch: whether Chase and the starters take any snaps in the preseason finale before rosters cut to 53 on Sunday, August 30, and whether the red-zone connection with Burrow keeps drawing specific mention in the final week of camp reporting. We'll check after cut day.

_Data via nflverse._