Chase calls out McPherson after Bengals’ crushing Chargers loss
The Cincinnati Bengals’ season has been a rollercoaster of close calls and crushing losses, and Sunday night’s 34-27 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium added another chapter to the frustration. This time, the tension spilled out vocally, with Ja’Marr Chase not holding back in postgame interviews.
When asked why the Bengals continue to fall short in one-score games—now six losses by seven points or less—Chase directed the question elsewhere.
“Ask Zac (Taylor). Ask the coaches. That’s not my job. I play football on the field. I don’t call plays for us,” Chase said, emphasizing his role as a player rather than a strategist.
The Bengals clawed their way back from a 27-6 deficit, tying the game at 27-27 in the fourth quarter. Chase was instrumental in the rally, scoring two touchdowns to give his team a fighting chance. But the momentum faded when kicker Evan McPherson missed two critical field goals—a 48-yarder with 7:31 left and a 51-yarder with 1:48 remaining.
When asked about McPherson’s struggles, Chase didn’t mince words.
“He knows to make those kicks. That’s why we paid him those bucks, to make those kicks in crunch time,” Chase said, referencing the three-year, $16.5 million extension McPherson signed in August.
McPherson’s recent struggles—missing five of his last 11 attempts—have raised eyebrows, though head coach Zac Taylor defended his kicker, saying, “We’ve got a lot of confidence in him. It just wasn’t his day.”
This loss felt all too familiar for the Bengals, and Chase didn’t shy away from expressing his exasperation with the team’s inability to close out games—or with answering the same questions week after week.
“Y’all ask the same questions because we give you the same thing every time,” Chase admitted. “I don’t know why we aren’t finishing. I don’t know what we’re doing to give ourselves an advantage to finish. Don’t know.”
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