Quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase are in a rare class of QB-WR duos who got to ply their trade together in college and in the pros. But just because they’re buddies doesn’t mean they don’t have little nagging habits that bother the other.
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Chase spoke about one of his habits—using copious amounts of “warm skin lotion”—to help him stay warm in the freezing Cincinnati cold. However, this habit has always been part of his routine, even in college, and it’s something that pushes his QB to the edge.
“Besides the hand warmer, I put on some warm skin. I try not to put too much on because Joe [Burrow]’s gonna scream at me… He screamed at me in college for doing it. He told me he (is) not throwing me the ball unless I take it off,” Chase told the media on Saturday.
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Chase was smirking throughout the presser, so the lotion is clearly nothing more than an inside joke. However, Bengals fans were surely laughing nervously and feeling a bit uneasy when they heard Chase say that Burrow would withhold the ball from the superstar receiver.
But it seems to be all in good fun. Chase recalled a time in college when Burrow made him remove the ointment after seeing how “shiny” the wideout became with it before the game.
“The Ole Miss game… I think this was like, I don’t think the game had started. I was… going on the field and I bumped him or he must have seen me like shiny, shiny. And he touched me and he was like ‘What’s that?’ I was like ‘Oh it’s just some stuff,’ and he was like ‘Take it off’ and I’m like ‘What?’ and he’s like, ‘Bro, I’m not throwing you the ball if you got it on’. I was like ‘Okay’, (laughs) I just took it off right there.”
Burrow and Chase played together at LSU from 2018 to 2019, winning a National Championship in that final year. The Cincinnati Bengals then drafted Burrow No. 1 overall in 2020. The next year, the same team nabbed Chase at No. 5 overall.
The Chase-Burrow connection has been working like gang-busters for Cincinnati this year if you look strictly at the box score—but if you take a gander up at the scoreboard, the combo has not been getting it done.
Burrow leads the league in passing TDs and is top five in yards, passer rating, and INT rate. Ja’Marr Chase leads the league in both receiving yards and TDs, and is just short of the receptions lead too.
And yet, the Bengals have stumbled out to a 4-7 record in 2024. That’s their worst start to a season since 2020, when they went 4-11-1 in Burrow’s rookie year. They still have designs on the postseason in 2024, however.
A tough divisional matchup with the division-leading Pittsburgh Steelers, who are sitting at 8-3, is on the horizon this Sunday. With temperatures expected to be in the 20s and 30s degrees Fahrenheit, Chase will need the “warm skin lotion”. Burrow might just have to deal with his WR1 being a little shiny on Sunday.
