Ja’Marr Chase Blames Dropped Passes On The NFL Football Not Having White Stripes Like The NCAA Ball

Ja’Marr Chase was selected with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2021 Draft and so far, his career has been off to a rocky start. The Bengals rookie wide receiver has been dropping passes left and right in practice and the preseason.

Chase’s reasoning for the drops is interesting. He admits that the biggest adjustments is the way the football looks inc college compared to how it looks in the NFL:

“The ball is different because it is bigger,” Chase said, via Bengals.com. “It doesn’t have the white stripes on the side so you can’t see the ball coming from the tip point so you actually have to look for the strings on the ball at the top, which is hard to see because whole ball is brown and you have the six strings that are white. But for the most part, just have to get used to it and find out what I am comfortable with catching.”

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Chase also said sitting out the 2020 season has him rusty.

“I don’t want to blame it on me sitting on my butt the whole year, but it probably had something to do with it, of course,” Chase said. “There’s a bigger ball adjustment, so I don’t want to make excuses but I’ve just got to be a pro and make the catch.”

The 21-year-old was a two-year starter at LSU and a unanimous All-American during his sophomore season.