CINCINNATI — Joe Burrow hasn’t had Ja’Marr Chase available to throw to since Cincinnati Bengals training camp began due to the receiver’s hold-in as he awaits a new contract. But Thursday afternoon, Burrow got a little reminder of what it’s like to throw to his favorite target.
With the Bengals in a goal-to-go situation during a competitive period that involved keeping score, Burrow leaned into a route that Chase has run often dating back to their LSU days and has a great success rate.
Andrei Iosivas Channels Ja’Marr Chase as Bengals Star Sits Out
It scored again in the wilting heat of the team’s longest practice yet, with Andrei Iosivas beating Dax Hill’s press coverage to catch the out route along the sideline in the end zone.
It was the only touchdown of the scoring period, but it was just the latest in a series of data points for Burrow to draw this conclusion:
"@AndreiIosivas is gonna have a big year… He's able to do it all."
Big predictions for the second-year WR! pic.twitter.com/5OBHKbN0Hg
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) August 1, 2024
“Andrei’s gonna have a big year,” the quarterback said after practice.
“I’m really excited about how he’s coming along,” Burrow continued. “Wherever he ends up playing, whether it’s inside or outside, he’s able to do it all.”
Iosivas is the last Bengals player to have multiple receiving touchdowns in a game, doing so in the season finale against the Cleveland Browns.
That’s the same number of multi-TD games Chase had last year.
No one is elevating Iosivas into Chase’s stratosphere, but the then-to-now transformation for the 6-3, 205-pound sixth-round pick out of Princeton has been the talk of camp.
.@JoeyB with the NO LOOK pass to @AndreiIosivas 😮💨
Training Camp | @KetteringHealth pic.twitter.com/0qOoARU7Bx
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) July 30, 2024
“He was just very raw from playing in the Ivy League to playing in the AFC North, and that’s not his fault,” head coach Zac Taylor said. “Playing at that level against some of the DBs you’re going to face, and then you go into this division, and it’s obviously very different. And you’re at our practices with our guys, it’s very different.
“Just experiencing that over the last 12 months, and then him being able to go into the offseason kind of with an understanding of here’s what I’m facing, here’s what this world is like, being able to work with (receivers coach Troy Walters), being able to work on his own in the offseason and come back ready to compete and know not what we expect of him but what is expected from a defensive perspective. He’s really grown that way.”
Iosivas has spent a lot of time in the slot in camp, bidding to grab the bulk of the snaps Tyler Boyd left behind when he signed with Tennessee.
But for Thursday’s touchdown, Iosivas was lined up outside.
“(Iosivas) was backside one-on-one. Really good route,” Burrow said. “That’s a route that Ja’Marr, we’ve run that route a lot since LSU. That’s a really good route. A great route for Yoshi, being a big-body, fast guy. He did a great job right there.”
Hill was pressed up on Iosivas and tried to use outside leverage to force him away from where he wanted to go.
Didn’t matter.
“You just have to be a big-body guy,” Iosivas said. “That’s why you have guys like Tee (Higgins) and me and Ja’Marr that do those kinds of routes. If something doesn’t work, if you can’t shake and bake ’em, just use what God gave you.”
Some might contend God was working against Iosivas — and everyone else — with the brutal heat and humidity.
Normally, he would reach out and snare the ball with just his hands. But with sweat running down his arms soaking his gloves, and sweat from everyone else making the ball slick, Iosivas made a decision on the fly to let the pass get into him.
“We were all sweating our butts off today, so I was like ‘maybe I should just body catch it,’” he said. “If I’m in the end zone already, I might as well just possession catch it and not risk the fact of wet gloves and wet ball.”
Iosivas’ teammates have noticed how much attention he’s been getting from Burrow and the media during training camp. Seemingly after every practice, he has reporters surrounding him at his locker.
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Safety Jordan Battle, who was in the 2023 draft class with Iosivas, joined the fray Thursday and had a question for his teammate:
“I know you had a great catch today in the red zone. How do you try to stay humble and not get too big of a head?” Battle asked.
“I see Jordan Battle competing every day at practice,” Iosivas replied. “I first thought he was this super cocky dude from ‘Bama, but we started talking, and he was cool, and I just model myself after you, bro.”
It may not be long before newcomers in the locker room are talking in a serious manner about modeling themselves after Iosivas.
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