John Ross has a great Day 1 at Bengals training camp

For the 2018 Bengals to reach their full potential, John Ross needs to become a major weapon in this offense.

So far, so good in terms of training camp.

As the Bengals opened Day 1 of camp on Thursday, Ross was one of the biggest bright spots, thanks primarily to this long scoring bomb he caught from Andy Dalton while sprinting past $52-million cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick.

(via James Rapien):

After being drafted No. 9 overall by the Bengals in 2017, it looked inevitable that Ross would be a major player in Cincinnati. However, injuries and a lack of playing time helped prevent him from ever making an impact.

Part of that was due to offseason shoulder surgery that caused Ross to miss training camp and be limited in the preseason. He opened up about that setback earlier this offseason with Bengals.com’s Geoff Hobson and how his body was never quite right.

“That was the problem,” Ross says. “My body didn’t respond the way I wanted it to. Coming in late, I didn’t get to train. I was out of shape. That was pretty tough on my body. Rushing into it. Being out of shape. My body couldn’t take the physical aspects of the game we do every day.

“I thought I could. I think it kind of wore me out faster than I thought. I really didn’t catch up until the end of the year when I started to have better practices. It all started to click together. It was already kind of too late. It was best to rest, get my body right.”

Ross sure looked like his body was fine on Day 1 of camp, though you can only take so much away from a pad-less practice. Still, just seeing him on the field running full speed past defenders is a great sight for Bengals fans to see.

Hopefully, there’s a lot more to come.