‘The Cincy Hat Scamper’ – Bengals Center Ted Karras Laments Dream Moment That Never Was

With the tweet of a whistle Sunday afternoon, a dream died.

Cincinnati Bengals center Ted Karras couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the football laying near his feet on the Levi’s Stadium turf after quarterback Joe Burrow had been sacked by 49ers defensive linemen Nick Bosa and Clelin Ferrell on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Karras scooped up the ball and took off 20 yards down the field, only to hear the officials incorrectly blow their whistles.

Bengals Center Ted Karras Says His Dream Was Stolen

Replays clearly showed the ball coming out before Burrow hit the ground, but the whistles killed the play … and Karras’ dream.

“My moment!” Karras said Monday. “I have never had a statistic in football. I thought I was going. I had a little stiff arm on (49ers linebacker) Fred Warner. They’re supposed to let that run.  I would’ve had a first down, maybe a touchdown. The crazy thing about that play is no one knew it was going on. There was no one around me, and the ball came directly to me, so it was a dream scenario.”

“It would’ve been the Cincy Hat Scamper,” he added, referring to his charity apparel line.

A Bengals fan on Twitter tweeted side-by-side photos of Karras running up the middle of the field Sunday and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase running up the field against the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2021 season with the message “Same energy.”

Chase had a hilarious reply.

😭😭 12 mph ted https://t.co/WXxst31l0v

— Ja’MarrChase (@Real10jayy__) October 30, 2023

The last time Karras got to take off running with the ball on a play that counted was in high school, although he said he would rather forget that one.

“I’ve been in the open field like that once before, and I fumbled,” he said, noting that he was playing defensive line, scooped up a fumble, and took off running. “That was senior year, semifinals, and we were killing this team. But I got the ball, and it was kind of like (Sunday), got the ball and had a head start on everyone. We kept the ball, but I did lose it.”

During a preseason game in 2021, while he was with the Patriots, Karras recovered a Rhamondre Stevenson fumble against the Philadelphia Eagles, but preseason stats obviously don’t count.

And exactly five years to the day earlier, on Oct. 29, 2018, Karras had a forced fumble, but it came on a two-point conversion attempt after Tom Brady had thrown an interception. And like preseason stats, two-point conversion stats don’t count.

On the plane ride home from San Francisco, Karras was watching head coach Zac Taylor go through the plays on his iPad and noticed he blew right past the fumble return that never was.

“He keeps saying, ‘Did you skip the run?'” Taylor said. “And I’m like, ‘we didn’t run it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And he’s like, ‘No, my carry.’ And I had kind of forgotten. When Joe was going down, I clicked to the next play.'”

So Taylor went back to the play to give Karras his assessment of his technique.

“Great ball security,” he said. “I’m glad he was looking over his shoulder instead of looking at the Jumbotron to see if anybody was coming because sometimes that mirror flips you a little bit. It would’ve been a healthy gain. I think ‘healthy gain’ is the right term there.”

The play should have counted, but Karras isn’t too upset it didn’t. He’s just having fun with a rare opportunity on a play that went down as a sack.

“Really, I’m celebrating a bad play by us up front, but then it turned into a dream scenario,” Karras said. “We ended up winning the game, so it’s kind of funny now.”

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