How the Bengals got Ja'Marr Chase the ball

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In Ted Nguyen's weekly article in the Athletic's "NFL’s best and worst coaching decisions" for week 5, he highlights "Getting Ja'Marr Chase the Ball":

With Tee Higgins out with a rib injury, the Bengals theoretically should have been easier to defend because the defense could focus on taking Chase away. The Arizona Cardinals did try to double him, but Chase had one of the best games of his career anyway, finishing with 15 catches for 192 yards and three touchdowns. Chase was a beast and ran through some doubles, but the Bengals coaching staff did a good job of finding ways to get their best playmaker the ball as well.

Chase did a lot of his damage on first down (six catches, 124 yards) when it was tougher to double-team him. Teams typically will play the run a little more on first down to avoid letting offenses get on schedule with a successful run. Some may argue the Cardinals should have sent hard doubles at him on all downs, but that’s just not how defenses typically do things. The Bengals also got Chase the ball in a variety of ways, like hitting him on speed outs on run/pass options (RPOs), getting him the ball on screens, moving him to the slot and designing shot plays for him.

[Diagram of a play at 14:12 remaining in the third quarter, first-and-10]

On Chase’s 63-yard touchdown, the Bengals had Joe Burrow fake a run to the right, drop at an angle to the right and stare down a curl to the right to get the safety on that side to bite underneath. Chase had a field post from the other side.

The defense was in a Cover 2 zone. The safety went to his usual landmark, dropping to the numbers while Chase got inside of him on the post. The design of the play worked perfectly as the opposite safety came up on the curl route, leaving no one in the deep half to the right. Burrow threw a perfect pass to Chase, who got to the end zone untouched.

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Taylor and the Bengals staff also had several plays in the game plan that were designed to take advantage of the defense overplaying Chase. That included lining up Chase in the backfield and having him swing left to throw a tunnel screen to the right. The Bengals couldn’t afford to lose another game and Taylor had his team prepared to play short-handed against a feisty Cardinals team.