It is Enshrinement Weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the residence of four players who sat in wide receiver rooms with Troy Walters during their playing careers.

A year from now there'll be a fifth. Larry Fitzgerald.

"You played with five Hall-of-Famers. Do you think you're coaching a sixth?" Walters is asked this week early in his fifth season as the Bengals wide receivers coach.

Like Ja’Marr Chase getting a challenge slapped across his face, no hesitation.

"Yeah, I do," says Walters, who also says he won't be surprised to see Chase wearing a captain's C on his No. 1 this season as well as an eventual Gold Jacket.

Here it is, just two weeks into defending his NFL Triple Crown, and Chase is as ornery as ever. The Bengals defense, rejuvenated by the brains of Al Golden and the heart of a young secondary, is celebrating every hint of a play with pure, uncut varsity jacket joy that has crawled underneath Chase's skin.

Chase, knowing they're looking for him to be more vocal, has fired back with trash talk worthy of an Ali weigh-in.

"No. 28 is the only one who's made any plays out here. What y'all screaming about?" he might say to a jeering band of DBs after a pass went awry.

Walters, one of those who has urged him to be more vocal: "He's not going to let the offense get picked on. If guys start talking bad about us, he's going to step in and step up for the offense."

After leading the league in everything as the highest non-paid quarterback in NFL history last season, Chase is still grinding in the weight room, still catching a bottomless barrel of balls, still going all-out in July as if it is December, still aware of the slightest slight.

Everyone sees the massive lower legs, where his veins have veins. The stream of quotes that he's one of the strongest guys on the team. His maniacal devotion to sci-fi-like recovery regimens as only three NFL receivers have played more than his 1,944 snaps the last two seasons. His hammer-tough hands that nail down everything thrown near them.

But there's something under the hood.

"Fear of being mediocre," Chase says. "I don't want to be average."

Trying to get under the hood of the best wide receiver in the NFL takes some time. While you're sitting in the waiting room, the Paycor Stadium chief mechanic, Joey Boese, the Bengals' head strength and conditioning coach, hands you the factory manual.

"Best in the world. A-plus in everything," Boese says. "Just look at his body. He's 205, 210 pounds. He's thick. I've never seen him come down on an arm tackle. He's one of the best, if not the best, in the game after the catch. There's a reason for that. What really impresses me about Ja'Marr is how he goes about the work week.

"Whether it's in practice, the weight room, or film room … Just watch him at practice. He's never going half-speed. A-plus effort all the time. He invests a tremendous amount (of money and time) in his body. His recovery is cutting edge. He's gifted, but when a guy is gifted like that, and then you put in the extreme work ethic, the desire, and all the intangibles that he has, now you become a superstar. That's what Ja'Marr is."

He is also Jimmy Chase's youngest son, and the father thinks that has a lot to do with Ja'Marr Anthony Chase's "fear of being mediocre."

"He has three older siblings. They tortured him as a kid, and he still hasn't forgotten," Jimmy Chase says. "He wouldn't keep the last lick. I'd yell, 'Y'all stop that,' and he just wouldn't let it go. Not until he got the last one in. It just rolls over into a lifestyle. That's his M.O. If you do him something, he's going to get you back.

"His siblings are probably where he kept his first receipts."

If anyone should know what's under the hood, it's Jimmy Chase. After all, he's the guy who advised his son never to take any guff or B.S. or anything like that from anybody because Jimmy surely never did.

Plus, Jimmy Chase has degrees in psychology and substance abuse counseling, as well as a master's in social work. His career as a substance abuse counselor and social worker involved with underprivileged adolescent children relied on his ability to know "what makes people tick?"

His youngest son?

"That's easy," Jimmy Chase says. "Just tell him he can't do something. Just tell him what he's not."

What he's not is the 2024 NFL Offensive Player of the Year. Chase finished third behind Eagles running back Saquon Barkley and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson with no first-place votes.

"He wrote that down somewhere," Jimmy Chase says. "He takes that into account. He's not really satisfied. It's like the Triple Crown went under the radar. 'Oh, and he won the Triple Crown.'"

What he is, most definitely, is singularly focused. Another reason the new money hasn't changed him is because Ja'Marr Chase desperately wants to win the Super Bowl.

"I still wake up the same," he says. "Eat the same. Still the same person."

That means something to players, always the first to whiff insincerity. Left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., an incumbent captain, says he won't be surprised, either, if Chase is voted one this year. He sees what Walters sees.

"He's a guy when he speaks, people listen," Walters says. "He does it on the field, and I told him one of his goals is to be more vocal and be a leader off the field with his words, and he's done a good job so far."

Isaiah Williams, the second-year wide receiver who is one locker down from Chase, says he'll eavesdrop to pick up some intel.

"I heard some of his recovery sessions are three hours long," Williams says. "OK, I can see why they can throw him 30,000 passes one week and then do it again the next week. And he doesn't lose a step. You have to put a lot of work in recovery to do that week after week.

"He's most definitely stepping up (talking) in the meeting room and locker room, but he leads by example. Like how he takes care of his body. Everybody sees it. One of his favorite things is acquiring therapy. Now Jermaine (Burton) is doing it. I'm doing it. When you see in the locker room how much he does to make sure he's prepared, how he recovers, it's a testament to how much he does away from here. I'm a guy who doesn't believe in luck or coincidence. There's a reason he's the best in the league. He loves playing football and he works hard."

Even the jawing DBs give Chase his due. After the yelling, there are also moments he'll tell them how he thinks they could have done it better.

"I think it's hilarious watching it on the sideline," says slot cornerback Dax Hill of the yammering. "I feel like his presence, getting hyped up on the offensive end, that's his way of leading. Getting the guys around him rejuvenated. He's a prime example of the right way to do it with consistency the way he's done it the last four years."

"The fear of being mediocre," means Chase can remember exactly when he felt mediocre. You have to go all the way back to seventh grade on the outskirts of New Orleans. But he remembers.

"Going against damn-near the best cornerback in the state," he says of future LSU teammate Kristian Fulton, 1 ½ years his senior.

After practices and between meetings this camp, Chase prowls the weight room and the recovery area with his daily routine. He just left the weight room, where, flat on his back, he used long sticks to make sure his legs were straight off the ground for 30 seconds so his abdomen seared with heat. Walters, who had jumped in with him, grunted with pain as the clock ticked down. Chase looked over impassively.

"Yeah, it hurt," Chase says later as he hunts for a snack. "But I'm used to it. Troy doesn't do it all the time. I do it twice a week."

This day is young even though practice has been over for 50 minutes.

"Got the time?" Chase asks as he moves to his next station in his fear of being mediocre.

"Ten minutes to one."

Sounds like a time stamp for a receipt.