Maybe the biggest surprise to come out of Sunday’s game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs was that it took 20 minutes before the jawing, pushing, and shoving escalated to the point of drawing penalty flags.
Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase put “fire on the fuel,” as he called it, earlier in the week with his comments about the Kansas City defense, words that certainly were heard and objected to by the Chiefs.
Chase said he initiated the smack talk as soon as he got on the field for the team’s 25-17 playoff-snuffing loss at Arrowhead Stadium. But it wasn’t until five minutes into the second quarter when the officials had to step in after Chase got into it with Kansas City cornerback L’Jarius Sneed away from the ball after a second-down run for no gain by Joe Mixon.
Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase Says Chiefs Can’t Handle Trash Talk
The two were face to face before they started shoving each other, and they continued to deliver shoves after an official tried to step between them.
“I don’t what he was doin’,” Chase said of Sneed. “I just be under people’s skin sometimes, I guess. The M-F’er want to fight me, so I was ‘All right.’”
Asked what led to the shoving, Chase said, “Just trash talking. Can’t handle it.”
At that point, Tee Higgins laughed from the next stall over, causing Chase to bust out in laughter.
“I started it off. They whole defense was mad at me,” Chase added. “It started at the beginning of the game. You seen it. I mean, everybody did. That’s just what I like to do.”
Chase didn’t exactly back up his mid-week trash talk, finishing with three catches for 41 yards as he played through a shoulder injury that caused him to miss last week’s game at Pittsburgh.
He said the shoulder, which he injured Dec. 16 against Minnesota, was “about 70%.”
“With the game on the line, the season on the line, just providing,” he said. “I wasn’t really in the offense to be all the way in it. I wasn’t in the offense to make 100% every play this game because I was a little bit injured. So they took a little bit off me. Once Tee went down, they started to move me around a little bit, and I just had to suck it up.”
Chase played 53 of 73 snaps (72%), which was below his usual load of at least 90%.
Higgins, who played only 29 snaps, injured his hamstring on his first catch of the night, a 19-yard gain to convert 3rd-and-7 at the Kansas City 20-yard line on the opening drive of the game.
The Bengals listed him as questionable to return, but he didn’t play again in the first half as Cincinnati built a 17-7 lead.
But he re-entered the game in the second half when he felt the lead slipping away.
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“It was one of those situations where it was a game-time decision of ‘do I want to go in and try to help the team get a win,’” Higgins said. “I made a decision to go back in.”
He immediately drew a 30-yard pass interference penalty that set up the Bengals with a first down at the Kansas City 15-yard line earlier in the third quarter. Cincinnati led 17-13 at the time, but the Bengals were unable to tack on any points when Joe Mixon got stuffed for a three-yard loss on 4th-and-1 at the 6-yard line.
In addition to limiting Chase to 41 yards, the Kansas City defense held the Bengals scoreless for the final 36 minutes and 23 seconds of the game. But Chase said he stood by his words from earlier in the week about the Chiefs not having a superstar on defense.
“The only thing I seen Sneed doing was just keep looking at the safety to check in cloud or double,” he said. “That’s just what they do. They just run two high, a little rotation.”
But was he willing to admit that the Kansas City defense is, in fact, good after saying earlier in the week there was nothing the Chiefs did that impressed him?
“They got a good up front, that’s it,” Chase said.
As for his shoulder, he said he wouldn’t have played today if the Bengals were already in the playoffs.
But he also said he thinks he’ll play next week against the Cleveland Browns even though the Bengals have been eliminated.
“I probably will. Who knows.”
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