This week in Bengals: The reason behind John Ross’ number change

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver John Ross (11) poses for a photo on media day, Monday, June 10, 2019 in Cincinnati. (Aaron Doster via AP)
By Paul Dehner Jr.
Jul 3, 2019

CINCINNATI — John Ross will no longer be wearing No. 15. He officially made the change to No. 11 this offseason and unveiled the new number on his Instagram last month after the much-discussed media day photo shoot.

Ross wore No. 1 in Pop Warner and at the University of Washington. He even wore No. 11 at one point when he was playing both ways during his freshman year for the Huskies (he had to take 11 with another player on defense wearing 1). He wore No. 2 at Jordan High School and it was recently retired.

Upon being drafted by the Bengals No. 11 was on his mind but already taken by Brandon LaFell. Ross ended up with No. 15.

There’s not much worth remembering from the two-year run of that number.

With a new coaching staff comes new hope for Ross. They view him as having untapped potential and capable of much bigger things than just a red-zone weapon with threatening speed.

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Ross made clear this change is about much more than just liking the way a number looks.

“I felt like, this is my third year, I get a chance to re-invent myself and re-create some of the old me,” Ross said. “I kind of wanted to basically start everything over. I get to put Ross III on the back of my jersey and get to change the number. Hopefully, just change the whole year.”

How much does Ross want to re-invent himself? Well, this process isn’t as easy as one would think. In order to switch jersey numbers, you have to buy out all the No. 15 jerseys in stock anywhere from the NFL. You’re stuck with the number until you do.

He’s still going through the rigamarole of making that happen. Hence, why he wore No. 15 during minicamp.

“It’s still crazy,” Ross said. “But it’s something I was passionate about. It’s not like I’m actually buying something that is useless or would throw away. I see it like somebody else purchasing like a diamond chain or something. I’m doing it based off something I really want. It’s actually, I do this for a living. It’s not like it’s a waste of money. It’s all planned out and something I wanted to do.”

Beyond acquiring the No. 15 jerseys, life stayed busy for Ross during this downtime in the NFL schedule. He put on a free camp for kids this past weekend in his hometown of Long Beach, Calif. Then he held a celebrity basketball game on Sunday night with a laundry list of NFL stars, including a player he’s long been compared to and become close friends with, DeSean Jackson.

Ross is also playing the role of dad to his 2-year-old son. He even sent a message out to the youngest of the Dalton and Green boys when a son wanted to follow in dad’s footsteps during a workout.

Oh yeah, about Ross and the legend of the 40-yard dash. His name came up instantly when Chad Johnson turned up as host of a 40-yard dash tournament with NFL stars vying for a $1 million cash prize on pay-per-view this past weekend (49ers receiver Marquise Goodwin won, by the way).

Ross’ claim to fame is still the fastest 40 time in the history of the combine. His 4.22 would make sense on 40 Yards of Gold bracket.

He chose not to run. Ross is in the game of re-inventing himself these days. Latching on to what defined his past didn’t necessarily vibe with the new mentality.

“I try to shy away from being that guy,” Ross said. “I want to focus on being me. I’m always going to have the speed label, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove. Not saying it’s pointless, much respect to those guys who want to do it, but that doesn’t mean too much to me … As much as I’d love to compete, I love competing, I felt like that wasn’t my focus at the time. Of course, it would have been a lot of fun and I knew it wouldn’t have taken too much time to do but I got a lot of things going and I’m trying to prepare for a big season.”

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Plus, he needs to keep responding to all the fans complaining about buying the No. 15 jerseys over the last two years.

“Lot of people were hitting me up on social media and telling me, ‘I got the 15 jersey, what am I going to do now?’” he said. “I’m like, ‘Oh man, sorry about that.’ I can’t respond to everyone, but I already bought all the 15 jerseys.”

On tap this week

The dead period continues, which is good for Bengals fans hoping for less news than last week.

Twitter question of the week

Thanks for the tweet, Harold. While this isn’t a question, I thought it was an interesting thought to dive into.

Mo Egger did a nice job attacking some of this topic in his column from Friday. Like most of Mo’s takes, this was logical, smart and illustrated a true understanding of the big picture. I recommend it for anyone unsure what to make of the Williams news.

Second, Harold is right. Let’s take this team on the surface with a comparison to last year.

Prior to Andy Dalton going down — I don’t count anything prior — was the offense the problem with this team? Well, the offensive line wasn’t great, but it did help produce a team somehow overcoming a defense that was on pace to be the worst in the history of this game to be 4-1 and 5-3. They were plowing the way for what turned out to be the AFC’s leading rusher and one who averaged nearly five yards per carry.

Even without Williams, this line on paper is better than last year’s. Replacing Alex Redmond with John Miller is a significant upgrade (I’d argue upgrading any position from awful to average is more impactful than going from average to above-average). Billy Price without a foot injury hampering him and a full offseason should be improved. Cordy Glenn, assuming he stays healthy, should be better than what we saw last year as health seemed to hurt his performance significantly.

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I’m also on board with Christian Westerman getting his shot at left guard, which appears to be option one for what will be a camp battle, I’m hearing.

They aren’t worse anywhere. They are better or potentially better in multiple spots. Losing Williams hurts the line’s ability to be above average, but it should even be better than last year when, really, the offense wasn’t the problem (again, prior to Dalton and A.J. Green injuries).

I’m seriously concerned about the depth at tackle, especially considering Bobby Hart’s level of play and Glenn’s recent injury history, but I also expect this team to make a move at some point in the preseason to provide reserves at that position, whether a veteran cut, waiver pickup or trade.

Overly researched stat of the week

I’m often asked about fantasy football this time of year and right now that means many questions about Joe Mixon. That was the case when I went on Will Brinson’s Pick-Six Podcast for CBS Sports last week (was a good conversation, if you have time).

We were talking about Mixon’s usage expectations and I was again pointing out Zac Taylor’s repeated vow to use all of his running backs more to keep Mixon fresh as the season progresses. Remember, he just watched Todd Gurley fall apart in Los Angeles last year.

Mixon won’t be short on touches. Trust me on that, but I think you’ll see much more of Giovani Bernard, 27, particularly in creative packages. I think there will be more of Mixon and Bernard out there together than you have in recent years.

Just wanted to run through the touches per game numbers of Bernard throughout his career to show how underused he was last year and perspective for what you could see from him this year.

Year (Games/starts) Rushes-
Receptions-
Total
Touches
per game
2013 (16/0) 170-56-226 14.1
2014 (13/9) 168-43-211 16.2
2015 (16/1) 154-49-203 12.7
2016 (10/2) 91-39-130 13.0
2017 (16/2) 105-43-148 9.3
2018 (12/4) 56-35-91 7.6

In my opinion, we see Bernard back in the 11-13 touch per game range. That’s where he belongs and still leaves plenty of room for Mixon to do damage and stay fresh.

Tweet of the week

This one from compensatory pick specialist Nick Korte at overthecap.com. He compiled the database of dead money over the last 10 years and there is Cincinnati at No. 32. I’ve written often about how much the Bengals value feeling like they are putting as many dollars as possible into the actual product on the field. They hate dead money more than any team in football and these numbers back that up.

Around the division

Browns: Zac Jackson with the unique story of Donnie Lewis Jr.

Steelers: Mark Kaboly says T.J. Watt is the most important Steelers player this season. Here’s why.

Ravens: Tony Jefferson talks about defending the AFC North title.

Bengals post of the week

Zac Taylor’s wife, Sarah, catching him in a dad moment I can commiserate with.

Degenerate corner

While we are talking about rushing projections, here are the FanDuel odds to be NFL rushing leader this year.

My value pick: Phillip Lindsay, Denver, is going off at +3400. Sign me up. And I’m not touching that Gurley number considering his health issues.

Must read

College sports are weird. Justin Williams captures the essence of that and UC football at SQUATFEST. By the way, I’m still waiting on the slo-mo shot of Justin drinking his morning McDonald’s in the middle of all this madness.

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Dad life

The zoo holds as a lynchpin of parenting. Animals, killing time, riding the train. It checks all the kid boxes. Having a pass to the Cincinnati Zoo and the ability to get in one hour before it opens to the general public is a key to our family existence.

I’m still stunned over what I witnessed this past Saturday (and happens regularly this time of year). As we left the zoo around 11 a.m. on a day tracking toward 90-plus degrees, there was a line to buy tickets that stretched down through all the ticket windows to more than halfway back across the walking bridge by the parking lot. Remember all that nice stuff I said about the zoo, and it’s all true, but I can’t imagine a life where I bake on that bridge waiting to buy tickets to go in there. I felt for every last one of those folks, but can’t fathom a scenario I wouldn’t just turn right around and find another way to spend my day.

Wrapping it up

The Ken Anderson for the HoF conversation has been going on for a long time. It looks like it could finally be happening with the senior committee potentially opening the floodgates this year. Sounds like a good time to trot out this video full of old KA highlights.

(Top photo: Aaron Doster / Associated Press)

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Paul Dehner Jr.

Paul Dehner Jr. is a senior writer and podcast host for The Athletic. He's been covering the Bengals and NFL since 2009, most notably, for six seasons with The Cincinnati Enquirer. He's born, raised and proudly Cincinnati. Follow Paul on Twitter @pauldehnerjr