It’s been a rollercoaster season for the Chiefs are winning their second Super Bowl in a row. The team had to make some room to trade and release some of their stars. However, the wideout position is probably the most important, especially for Patrick Mahomes. There wasn’t any reliability in their wide receiving corps so this may be why they released Valdes-Scantling.

The ongoing Rashee Rice investigation clearly shows that they need a starting receiver. Boyd could fill that hole quickly.

NFL Players Who Will Benefit Most from 2024 Free-Agency Roster Changes | Bleacher Report

Marquise Brown, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

Marquise Brown struck gold in free agency by signing a one-year, $7 million deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. He’ll now be catching passes from Patrick Mahomes, which should put him in line for a much larger contract next offseason.

Mahomes has led the NFL in touchdown passes twice over the past six seasons. He also threw for a league-leading 5,250 yards in 2022.

Brown played with quarterback Lamar Jackson when Jackson won his first league MVP in 2019, but the Baltimore Ravens operated a run-heavy offense (No. 1 in rushing attempts) under former offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

Last year with the Arizona Cardinals, Brown played with backup quarterbacks in the first half of the season while Kyler Murray recovered from a torn ACL. Though Murray returned to action in Week 10, Brown missed the last three games with a heel injury.

Assuming Brown stays healthy, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to rack up big numbers in a contract year.

Mahomes hasn’t missed a start because of an injury since 2019, and there are question marks among his pass-catching corps. At 34, tight end Travis Kelce could see a slight decline in targets. Meanwhile, the league could suspend wideout Rashee Rice for his involvement in a recent car accident in Dallas.

Brown could post career highs across multiple receiving categories as a key contributor in the Chiefs’ aerial attack.

Now, sports analyst Chris Broussard has raised the question whether Stroud could potentially challenge Patrick Mahomes, who just clinched his second consecutive Super Bowl victory.

Broussard believes so, suggesting that while Stroud may not yet be on Mahomes’ level, he has the potential to become a top contender. Despite acknowledging Stroud’s talent, Broussard emphasizes that being compared to Mahomes is premature given Stroud’s rookie status and limited experience.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say that CJ Stroud is right now, definitely is better than Lamar or Josh and Joe Burrow,” Broussard told First Things First.

A Look Back at Every Fifth-Round Draft Pick in Chiefs History | The Mothership

– Tight end Noah Gray, one of two fifth-round selections for the Chiefs in 2021 (No. 162 overall), caught 28 passes for 305 yards and two touchdowns in 2023.

– Defensive end Mike Danna, who the Chiefs selected with the No. 177 overall pick in 2020, has recorded 39 quarterback hits, 17 tackles-for-loss and 17 sacks in 59 games (23 starts) over the last four seasons. His sack total has increased each year, culminating in a 6.5-sack effort in 2023.

– Former wide receiver Carlos Carson, who was inducted into the Ring of Honor in 2017, played in the most games (120) in a Chiefs uniform of any fifth-round pick in franchise history.

Titans CB L’Jarius Sneed excited to learn from Calvin Ridley, DeAndre Hopkins: I’ve ‘never had two elite’ WRs like them | NFL.com

Following his trade from Kansas City, Sneed now has two big-name wide receivers in DeAndre Hopkins and Calvin Ridley to line up against every practice, an aspect he believes will add yet another layer to his game.

“To get out there and work with them elite wide receivers, I never had two elite guys like them, going up against them every day,” Sneed said this week on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “I had great players, but them two guys, household names, they stick out. I can’t wait to get to work with those guys. I know they’re gonna make me better in practice, and I can’t wait to pick both of their brains on how to get better. What they see. What my weakness is from their eyes and not from other guys I’ve been playing with for four years. I want new guys looking from the outside in.”

The Chiefs obviously made do after moving on from Tyreek Hill following 2021, finishing both seasons since with a Super Bowl victory, but Kansas City hasn’t employed a true No. 1 WR in either year.

Texas has two top-ranked receiver prospects in Mitchell and Xavier Worthy. I have the Chiefs choosing Mitchell largely due to his size (6-foot-4, 190 pounds).

Around the NFL

Patriots agree to terms with S Kyle Dugger on four-year extension worth up to $66 million | NFL.com

The Patriots agreed to terms with safety Kyle Dugger on a four-year, $58 million extension that can be worth up to $66 million and comes with $32.5 million guaranteed, NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo reported Sunday morning along with NFL.com’s Eric Edholm.

The extension takes place of the transition tag that New England placed on Dugger in March.

That tag, which was worth $13.8 million, was a one-year tender based of the average of the safety position’s 10 highest salaries. Dugger’s new deal beats that out with a $14.5 million per-year average to move him up to the sixth-highest earner at his position, plus the added years of security to boot.

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

Chiefs Salary Cap: QB Carson Wentz will cost the team $3.3 million in 2024

As laid out on the salary-cap site Spotrac, the ninth-year veteran will earn a fully-guaranteed base salary of $1,210,000 and is being paid a signing bonus of $990,000.

Wentz — like many Kansas City players — is also carrying a roster bonus against the salary cap. In his case, it’s for $25,000. Finally, he’s set to earn as much as $1.1 million in per-game roster bonuses, which works out to about $64,706 for each game.

It’s important to note that Wentz will earn these roster bonuses simply by being active on game day; it won’t matter if he actually plays. So it’s very likely that he will be paid every dime of that $1.1 million this season.

But since Wentz was active for only eight 2023 matchups for the Los Angeles Rams, just eight of these per-game bonuses — a total of $517,647 — are considered likely-to-be-earned (LTBE) and will count against the 2024 salary cap. If earned, the rest will count against the 2025 cap calculation.