CINCINNATI (WXIX) – A few seconds before Joe Burrow snaps the ball, he swirls his finger around in a circle behind his left hip, like he’s stirring a cup of coffee to mix in a splash of cream. Ja’Marr Chase, standing on the left side of the field, has his eyes on the quarterback.
At the snap, the Miami Dolphins double-team both Chase and Tee Higgins. It’s a look that the Bengals have seen more over the last five years than any other team in the NFL. Chase pretends to run a route over the middle of the field, stutter steps between the safety and the cornerback and ends up breaking down the field for a 36-yard gain in the third quarter of last Sunday’s win. All this, on a play where Chase was being double teamed.
If there’s a single play that represents the Bengals’ offense in a nutshell, it’s this one.
“You can’t just let a team take away your star players,” Zac Taylor said. “Our coaching staff has put a lot of work into that. Sometimes that’s just Joe making an adjustment. It’s he and Ja’Marr being on the same page and Joe making a subtle audible at the last second, a hand signal. A lot of times, it’s things we’ve discussed. A lot of times, Joe has great awareness of what the coverage is going to be and he adjusts.”
Who’s to say what the swirling of the finger signified? But it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the finger swirl was a subtle audible into the coolest play in the Bengals’ offense: The double move go against Double Double.
This section of the playbook all originates in the 2021 NFL Draft when the Bengals took Chase over offensive tackle Penei Sewell. With that pick that paired Chase with Higgins, the Bengals gained their identity.
“You invest in (Chase and Higgins) because it makes us one-of-one when it comes to a passing attack,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “When you put Tee opposite Ja’Marr, you see what defenses have to try to do to try to take those guys away. It’s not traditional football. It’s very, very concerted efforts to take them away.”
As a rookie in 2021, Chase made a name for himself with all of the deep catches that he made on vertical routes down the sideline against one-on-one coverage or zone coverage. During Chase’s rookie season, he didn’t face a ton of double teams.
“Until teams physically played against him and figured out how physical he was, they thought they could stop him,” Taylor said. “Then once defensive backs ran back to their coordinators and said (Chase) is too strong, then we saw a shift.”
The shift took place in 2022. The Bengals started 0-2 that year as defenses put “umbrellas” over the top, prioritizing taking away deep shots and double teaming Chase. Over the course of that season, the Bengals started seeing a defensive coverage that’s nowhere near as common as you might think.
Double Double.
Chase gets double-teamed by a safety and a corner. Higgins gets double teamed by a different safety and a different corner. The other pass catchers are defended one-on-one. And four defensive linemen rush/spy the quarterback.
Bengals safeties coach Jordan Kovacs describes Double Double like this: “It’s a very game-plan specific call. Our offense sees it all the time. The way you coach Double Double is if you’re the safety, you have the in-breaks. The corner has the out-breaks. You have the breaks to your leverage. The rest of the guys are in Cover-0 with no help who have to win one-on-one.”
Double Double isn’t used much around the NFL. When it is called, it’s used as a changeup in very specific pass-first situations. Teams can call it on third down or in the red zone. You can also see Double Double in two-minute drills when the offense needs to throw the ball.
Typically, in the limited number of snaps of Double Double that defenses show against teams that aren’t the Bengals, defensive backs lock in on receivers who are lined up in specific places as opposed to simply double teaming two specific receivers independent of where they’re lined up.
For example, when teams around the NFL aren’t facing the Bengals and call Double Double, they might commit to double teaming the other team’s No. 1 receiver as well as whoever is lined up in the slot. Teams usually just deploy other styles of defense that give them more freedom to run blitzes, simulated pressures, zone coverages and disguises.
But when those teams face the Bengals, they’ll instead double team Chase and Higgins on several of the most important plays of the game.
For the Bengals, whatever Double Double looks that defenses have shown in the past against other teams are irrelevant. When teams face the Bengals, they’ll run coverages they’ve never shown before. Teams will call Double Double more against the Bengals than any other team they face, and they’ll also double team Chase and Higgins no matter where they’re lined up.
Because of the two superstars the Bengals have at receiver, the offense gets treated differently from the other 31 offenses around the league.
“Every coordinator has to pick their poison,” Pitcher said. “It’s no surprise to me that week after week, we see some variation of Double Double.”
Nobody else gets coverages quite like this at a frequency like the Bengals do. The coverage variations designed to stop Chase and Higgins are so uncommon that the Bengals should really get the naming rights to Double Double and get to rename the coverage whatever they want.
The Bengals see it so much because of the fear that Chase and Higgins put into opposing defenses.
“Those (receivers) certainly take that as a sign of respect,” Burrow said. “Our coaches do such a good job of designing plays and game plans for all of the unique things that we see because of those two guys.”
Adjusting to Double Double has been a years-long project for the Bengals. It’s become a passion project for the Bengals’ coaches.
“I like talking Double Double,” Taylor says with a big smile. “It’s been happening so much over the years. We’ve gotten it so much that we’ve learned how to counter it and not accept it. Counter it. We’ve got a pretty good menu of plays that can attack it.”
Any conversation about Double Double always goes back to the 2022 AFC Championship Game. The entire game against the Chiefs turned when Tyler Boyd exited the game with a thigh injury in the second quarter.
In the second half of that game, Burrow was limited to 123 passing yards. Sixty-two of those yards were between two plays, and those two plays resulted in a touchdown catch for Higgins and a 35-yard gain from Chase that got the Bengals to the goal line and set up a touchdown.
These deep catches from the 2022 AFC Championship Game were identical to Chase’s 36-yard catch last Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. They were double moves against Double Double that turned into go routes down the field.
The coolest play in the Bengals’ playbook.
“If they want to double, we’ve got to find ways to continue to get them the ball and get open,” wide receivers coach Troy Walters said. “That’s one of the ways.”
The double move takes advantage of the weak spot in the Double Double defense, and the concept has generated plenty of explosive plays for the Bengals in clutch spots in recent years.
“The soft spot in a double is if it gets split,” Kovacs said. “Especially if (the receiver) stutters his feet. We do a tremendous job (on offense). As a staff, we talk about what really stresses defensive backs out when you are in Double Double. Splitting it, stuttering, breaking leverage somehow. Those guys have seen it all. They have all the answers for it.”
It’s critical to the operation that the Bengals have ways to still get Chase and Higgins the ball even when they’re both being double teamed.
Before last week’s game in Miami, NFL Next Gen Stats provided the stat that Chase has faced double coverage on 29 routes this season, more than any other receiver through 15 weeks since at least 2018 and the most this season by 11. Chase has been targeted on 15 of these routes, also the most since 2018, and has caught nine of these targets.
The best answer against double teams has been the double move that turns into a vertical go route. The Bengals have run that play so many times over the years that one pre-snap hand signal from Burrow can put a deep shot to Chase or Higgins in motion.
“You can’t just let teams double them,” Burrow said. “They’re too good of players to think that way. You have to find ways to get them the ball.”
Burrow, the most accurate passer in the league, is often able to find a way. From a defensive perspective, allowing a deep catch against the receiver that you’re doubling is about as deflating as it gets.
“When a coordinator is on the sideline and the guy that you’re doubling catches the ball, you’re like what the heck?” Kovacs said. “We have no answers if they’re beating Double Double.”
There will also be situations where Chase and Higgins ultimately just can’t get open against Double Double.
Back in the AFC Championship Game in 2022, following the two critical heaves to Chase and Higgins, the Bengals needed one more explosive play to make it to the Super Bowl. The Bengals got the ball with the score tied and 2:30 left. The Chiefs, in two-minute mode, used a dime defense with six defensive backs and double-teamed Chase and Higgins. The star receivers weren’t able to get open. That drive went nowhere. The Bengals punted. The Chiefs won the game in the final seconds.
The Bengals learned that they’d need more answers against Double Double.
Taylor said that Pitcher, Walters, passing game coordinator Justin Rascati and quarterbacks coach Brad Kragthorpe have all worked with him to build a Double Double plan that can work against the different variations the Bengals face. For the most part, the project has been a huge success. Over the last two years, when Burrow, Chase and Higgins are all on the field, the Bengals statistically have the best offense in the NFL.
Initially, Burrow said that he used to “run teams out of” Double Double by scrambling for first downs. Then, Burrow said that defenses adjusted and starting running Double Double with a quarterback spy.
So what do you do when you can’t run and when Chase and Higgins aren’t open?
To develop that solution, the Bengals invested in more pass catchers and developed one of the most dynamic pass catching running backs in the NFL in Chase Brown.
“We have so many weapons now that teams will still do it, but we have so many different ways to attack it now,” Burrow said. “Our coaches do such a good job of designing a couple of plays each week to go and beat it. We’ve faced it enough now that we can make adjustments on the fly. Mike G has been a big part of that. Chase Brown has been a big part of that out of the backfield. Andrei has played a big role in that.”
A tight end like Mike Gesicki would have been the perfect counter to the Chiefs’ Double Double looks in 2022, which is a part of what makes him so valuable to the Bengals.
Chase Brown has developed so much as a route runner that he’s now even getting a shot to show what he can do as a true slot receiver. Andrei Iosivas has made notable tough, clutch catches in important spots over the last two years.
“We have so many guys that can go and beat man coverage that teams can’t just sit in it,” Burrow said.
In the middle of a game, after seeing a few reps of what the defense is doing on true passing downs, the coaches and players can identify what style of Double Double they’re getting that day and make an adjustment on the fly. The Bengals face different variations week-to-week, but they’ve been very good at responding with the right counter.
The fact that the Bengals have the best offense in the league when Burrow, Chase and Higgins are all healthy shows that the Bengals are winning this chess match that this offense is playing against 31 defenses across the league.
“One of your primary objectives as a person who designs the (defensive) game plan or calls the plays is to make sure that the opponent’s best players aren’t the ones that beat you,” Pitcher said. “If you walk away and their best players beat you, then most of the time you feel defeated. It’s on us to make sure we have the answers.”
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