A little under three weeks after being released by the New England Patriots, veteran wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster has a new home back in a familiar place.
According to Bleacher Report NFL insider Jordan Schultz, the Kansas City Chiefs are set to sign Smith-Schuster, reuniting them with the receiver who helped them win Super Bowl LVII over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Smith-Schuster spent the 2022 season with the Chiefs and hauled in 78 passes for 933 yards and three touchdowns. It was his lone season with the Chiefs, signing as a free agent after five seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In the playoffs with the Chiefs in 2022, he hauled in 10 passes for 89 yards and drew a key penalty against Philadelphia cornerback James Bradberry late in the Super Bowl to lead the Chiefs to the win.
The former USC wide receiver was released by the Patriots on Aug. 9 ahead of his second season with the franchise after he signed a three-year, $33 million contract ahead of the 2023 season. Last season in New England, Smith-Schuster appeared in just 11 games, making seven starts.
The veteran receiver’s production fell off a cliff as he finished the season with 26 catches for 260 yards and one touchdown. His best performance of the season, ironically, came against the Steelers on Thursday Night Football in Week 14, Smith-Schuster hauling in four passes for 90 yards.
Through seven NFL seasons, Smith-Schuster has hauled in 430 receptions for 5,048 yards, and 30 touchdowns.
His release from New England wasn’t much of a surprise. He was owed big money, didn’t have the production to match it and had been dealing with a knee injury that has sapped his speed and burst at just 27 years old.
Kansas City offers a good bounce-back opportunity for Smith-Schuster, where he’ll get to work with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid once again. He was largely a possession receiver for the Chiefs in the 2022 season, averaging 12.0 yards per catch, but he did see his average air target jump from 4.6 yards in his final season in Pittsburgh to 9.2 in his one season in Kansas City.
His average depth of target in New England last season was just 5.5 yards.
Smith-Schuster lands on a Kansas City offense that added a bunch of speed and playmaking ability to the receiver room this offseason, the Chiefs trading for Hollywood Brown and landing Xavier Worthy in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Brown is sidelined with a shoulder injury suffered in the preseason.
The injury to Brown is known as a sternoclavicular joint dislocation, which caused him to spend time in the hospital. Along with Brown and Worthy, the Chiefs have Rashee Rice, Skyy Moore, Kadarius Toney and Justin Watson at the receiver position, though the league has yet to hand down punishment for Rice, who had multiple off-the-field legal issues this offseason.
