Bates ready to make plays on biggest stage

Bengals free safety knows defense will have tough challenge against Rams’ high-powered offense

Credit: Paul Sancya

Credit: Paul Sancya

Thinking back on big defensive plays from past Super Bowls, Cincinnati Bengals free safety Jessie Bates recalls New England cornerback Malcom Butler intercepting Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson at the 1-yard line in the final minute of Super Bowl XLIX to seal a win for the Patriots in 2015.

Bates has been making plays throughout the Bengals’ playoff run, and the Bengals could be counting on a big game from the secondary when they face the L.A. Rams on Sunday in Super Bowl LVI.

Cincinnati is preparing for a Rams offense that features the league’s best deep ball passer in quarterback Matthew Stafford and a receiving corps that thrives on explosive plays through Odell Beckham and Cooper Kupp.

“That’s a crazy thing about football, all it is is just guys out there making plays,” Bates said Monday in a virtual press conference to kick off Super Bowl Week. “If you don’t make the play, another guy will. I’m just happy that I’m starting to see the ball. I’m starting to have a good feel for things again. It’s just how the game works sometimes.”

The Bengals have ended games in Malcom Butler-like fashion lately.

Bates had an interception to open the divisional round game against Tennessee, which ended with a Logan Wilson interception, and Bates tipped the ball Patrick Mahomes threw in overtime that Vonn Bell ended up catching for a pick. Bates, a safety out of Wake Forest, also had three pass breakups in the wild card win over the Raiders.

Stafford led the league with 17 interceptions, and Bates is hoping there are opportunities to force him into mistakes Sunday. Bates said with how aggressive the Rams are on the deep ball, that can lead to more interceptions, but Stafford also completed 18 passes for 40 yards or more this season with a long of 79 yards. He also tossed 41 touchdowns, trailing only Tom Brady’s league-leading 43 touchdown passes.

“You know how explosive they are, always working from guys’ leverage, find a way to get open always,” strong safety Vonn Bell said in describing the Rams’ offense. “Relentlessness to them, always trying to hit the long ball and breaking tackles. Kupp has 140 receptions on the year, so Stafford does a good way of finding the offense and with his arm talent he can make every throw. Very powerful. That’s what you see on film.”

Kupp was the league’s top receiver during the regular season, catching 145 passes for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns. The Pro Bowl and All-Pro first-team selection finished the past two games with 325 yards receiving combined and three touchdowns.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor, who was with the Rams’ coaching staff in 2017 when they drafted Kupp in the third round out of Eastern Washington, said Kupp has “always had that in him.”

“He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever been around at any position,” Taylor said. “He’s a big-picture thinker, so he really understands the structure of the defenses, the nuances of the route running. He cares about the run game as well. There’s often times he would screenshot pictures of defenses with run thoughts. You’d wake up in the next morning with a midnight text from Cooper Kupp on thoughts on things that could help the offense. He’s certainly rare that way. I certainly think highly of him and Robert Woods. Those are the two guys that are still there from when I was there. And Eric Yarborough, the receivers coach there, has done a tremendous job with that room. Have a lot of respect for those guys.”

Taylor said Kupp’s route running is so effective because he’s got “good change of direction” and “really good quickness.” He never goes down on first contact either.

“He’s really strong,” Taylor said. “He’s a lot like Ja’Marr in that way. I think they’re both very similar in their run after the catch. He understands the defense’s approach. I always remember he had a lot of conversations with the DBs, what they were thinking, when I line up here, where do you think I’m gonna go? So he’s able to play off of a lot of the stuff that he knows the defense is approaching him with.”

Aside from Kupp, former Browns wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. also has become a growing part of the Rams’ offense. He caught 27 passes for 305 yards and five touchdowns in eight regular-season games after forcing a release from the Browns midseason when his father complained on social media about Baker Mayfield not throwing to Beckham Jr. enough.

The veteran wide receiver caught nine passes for 113 yards in the NFC Championship win over San Francisco.

“You have to be aware of where they are at all times,” Bates said of Beckham and Kupp. “They can beat you deep, they can just beat you on a simple funnel screen, so just having that awareness of where those guys are at all times on the field, I think, is very critical.”

“We know the challenge that’s at hand,” Bates added. “You have a really veteran quarterback. You have really smart receivers who understand coverages and stuff like that. So, I think tackling, no explosive plays and communication will be the biggest part to our success as a defense. And then lastly, just simply making plays, I feel like in the first half of some of these other games we haven’t made some plays and we kind of started off slow. But with good teams like this, the margin of error is really small, so we have to jump out early, come out fast with a sense of urgency, and we’ll be just fine.”

SUPER BOWL LVI

Sunday’s Game

Bengals vs. Rams, 6:30 p.m., NBC, 700, 1530, 102.7, 104.7

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