Ja’Marr Chase has surpassed his former LSU teammate Justin Jefferson as the league’s top receiver.
ESPN’s annual survey of executives, coaches, and scouts confirms this.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, Chase “earned around 70% of the first-place votes despite finishing third in catches (125) and fourth in receiving yards (1,412) last season” because he “looks different than everybody else with the ball in his hands.”
In the article, Fowler quotes one coach as saying, “He’s the best I’ve gone against…
He can break it for 80 [yards] at any time.”
Fowler noted that Chase has the second-most receiving yards (6,837) in his first five seasons of any player in NFL history. Only Jefferson has done better. Chase also has the most touchdowns (19) of 40-plus yards since he entered the league in 2021, six more than second-place Tyreek Hill. And he has a league-leading 29 receptions against press coverage.
One coach was quoted as saying that Chase is “the ultimate chess piece”, because the Bengals have moved him around more and more the past two years to great success.
The other receivers to make the top ten were Jefferson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba (Seattle Seahawks), Puka Nacua (Los Angeles Rams), Amon-Ra St. Brown (Detroit Lions), CeeDee Lamb (Dallas Cowboys), George Pickens (Dallas Cowboys), Nico Collins (Houston Texans), A.J. Brown (New England Patriots), and Davante Adams (Los Angeles Rams).
