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One of the most infuriating sources of frustration as a sports fan is watching your team get dominated by a player who simply has their number, and as of Thursday night, no wide receiver in NFL history has managed to terrorize the defense of one team in a single season quite like Ja’Marr Chase.
The Ravens were sitting at 6-3 heading into their Thursday Night Football showdown with the Bengals, and that strong start could largely be credited to an offense that led the league in rushing yards on the back of Derrick Henry and was near the top of the list on the passing front courtesy of Lamar Jackson.
Cincinatti was also toward the front of the pack when it came to the teams with the most receiving yards thanks in no small part to the dynamic duo of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, who posed a pretty big threat to a Baltimore defense that had surrendered more yards in the air than any other NFL team this season (only the Jaguars and the Texans had given up more receiving touchdowns).
Chase previously had a field day with the Baltimore secondary when the two teams met at the start of October, as he caught 10 passes for 193 yards and hauled in two touchdowns in his team’s 41-38 overtime loss.
That was a hard mark to top, but Chase more than managed to do exactly that by recording 264 yards on 11 receptions and catching three touchdowns.
As Josh Dubow of the Associated Press noted during the game, the 457 yards the wideout racked up over the course of those two contests was more than enough to break the record for the highest receiving total racked up by one player against the same team in s single season, which had stood at 428 since Raiders WR Art Powell dominated Houston in a similar fashion more than 60 years ago.
Ja’Marr Chase’s 431 yards receiving this season vs Ravens are the most ever for 1 player for 1 opponent in a season, topping Art Powell’s 428 for #Raiders vs Oilers in 1963
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) November 8, 2024
It’s an impressive achievement, but one the Ravens can brush aside with one word: scoreboard, as they now have a four-game winning streak against their AFC North foes thanks to the 35-34 victory.
The fact that Cincinnati is 0-2 against the Ravens this season (and 4-6 overall) despite Chase’s contributions is a fairly major cause for concern, and on the flip side of the coin, Baltimore needs to address the defensive shortcomings that seem destined to come back to bite them at some point.
The offense has largely bailed them out so far, but it doesn’t seem like a very sustainable formula.