To make it in the National Football League, you can't just show up on gameday. It requires work all week long for months on end, and sometimes that means you need to put friendships on the back-burner. Cincinnati Bengals wideout and the league's leading receiver Ja'Marr Chase knows this all too well, because as it turns out, he's been getting the cold shoulder from his best friend, Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson.
Chase can say that Jefferson is “too big-time” for him, but it's not as if the Bengals fourth-year wideout is just some slouch barely hanging on to an NFL career while Jefferson has been setting the league on fire in Minnesota. In fact, if we compare Jefferson's first 55 career games to Chase's, the numbers are not far off.
Ja'Marr Chase, through 55 career games – 494 targets, 334 receptions, 4,698 receiving yards, 39 touchdowns
Justin Jefferson, through 55 career games – 529 targets, 360 receptions, 5,396 receiving yards, 28 touchdowns
And if we're going based on the 2024 season alone, Chase has the slight edge over his best friend and former LSU teammate.
Ja'Marr Chase, 2024 season – 6.6 receptions, 98.1 receiving yards, 1.0 touchdown per game
Justin Jefferson, 2024 season – 5.9 receptions, 92.3 receiving yards, 0.6 touchdown per game
Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson go from LSU standouts to NFL superstars
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Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson spent two seasons as teammates in Baton Rouge, the latter of which was in LSU's 2019 National Championship winning season. On the Tigers' rampage toward the program's third National Title of the century, Chase and Jefferson were virtually unstoppable.
Ja'Marr Chase, 2019 season – 84 receptions, 1,780 receiving yards, 20 touchdowns
Justin Jefferson, 2019 season – 111 receptions, 1,540 receiving yards, 18 touchdowns
Meanwhile, LSU quarterback Joe Burrow — now a Cincinnati Bengals teammate of Ja'Marr Chase — won the Heisman Trophy with the largest margin of victory in the vote's history, and that was for very good reason. Burrow put up the definition of video game numbers during the 2019 season, finishing with 5,671 yards, 60 touchdowns and a 76.3 completion percentage, all of which led the NCAA.
