Naylor: Canadian Chase Brown ready for bigger role with Bengals | TSN

As a National Football League rookie last season, Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown spent time learning the ropes, focusing on special teams, and being ready for when his chances came to relieve franchise running back Joe Mixon.

His opportunities on offence may have been few, but there were flashes of what may be to come when he did get playing time late in the season.

Most memorable was the 54-yard screen pass Brown took to the house against Indianapolis on Dec. 10, as the league got its first real look at the dynamic qualities the 24-year-old London, Ont., native possesses.

“Making people miss in space … I mean, you put me in space one-on-one with somebody, I can make them miss and take it to the house,” said Brown, during training camp this summer. “That’s my mindset there. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Brown’s emergence late last season, where his 44 carries for 179 yards and 14 catches for 156 yards came mostly during the final six games of the regular season, is undoubtedly part of what allowed the Bengals to trade Mixon to the Houston Texans during the off-season.

They also signed free agent Zach Moss, who will share carries in the Cincinnati backfield to begin this season when the Bengals open at home Sunday against the New England Patriots.

“[The Mixon trade] meant a ton of opportunities opening up,” said Brown.

Being ready for those opportunities, however, would mean putting in a lot of work to refine his skills to match the needs of the Bengals offence – specifically improving as a receiver coming out of the backfield.

In three seasons at the University of Illinois, Brown defined himself as an every-down back capable of carrying a heavy load, rushing for 3,558 yards during his career and finishing the 2022 season as the NCAA’s second-leading rusher.

While he rushed the ball 676 times in college, he caught it just 58 times.  

“We’re a pass-first offence and in a pass-first offence you have to be able to catch the ball,” said Brown. “I want to be a threat in the pass game, and if I can do that, I can see my role getting a bit bigger.

“I had a ton of carries in college, so I have a good run base and a ton of protecting experience. But catching the ball and lining up in different positions out of the backfield, I didn’t have a ton of experience with. That’s what I was trying to build on.”

Brown’s selection in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL Draft said more about the devaluation of the running back position in today’s game than it did about his readiness for the NFL and potential for stardom.

He entered the league with the mentality that to be successful he had to continue to develop while in the NFL, which includes taking advantage of the off-season.

That meant having his strength coach from London move in with him in Atlanta for the winter. He also joined second-year Bengals wideout Andrei Iosivas in working with a private coach on their receiving skills.

“You go into an off-season knowing what you need to work on,” said Brown. “Instead of kind of dwelling on that I went into it full speed, just trying to expand that ability to become better at my weaknesses and continue to grow my strengths at the same time.

“I spent a ton of time just working on my route running and my ability to catch the ball. That was my main focus. We would run right at [private receiver coach Drew Lieberman] and he would throw the ball right at us full speed. If we weren’t full extension and eyes on the ball, it wasn’t a good rep. I learned a ton from that. I worked on my ball security and my pass protection, trying to do as much as I could so I would be ready to go.”

The Bengals threw the ball 63.45 per cent of the time last season, second-highest among all NFL teams, while Mixon ranked 13th among all running backs with 62 targets.

Brown calls his development this off-season as a route runner “night and day.”

“Just my knowledge, my fundamentals when it comes to break points, hip shifts, just little things you wouldn’t think about looking from the outside,” he said. “But fundamentally I’m a lot better.”

Preparation meeting opportunity is a formula for growth and success in the NFL, one Brown has followed in anticipation of being able to make a bigger name for himself his second season.

“That’s where you see the biggest jump,” he said. “And that’s my mindset right now.”