Meeting his newest offensive weapon, Patrick Mahomes, did not take long.
Less than a week after Brown signed a contract with the Chiefs, the quarterback teamed up with freshly signed wide out Marquise Brown for an offseason session at the gym. After playing with the Cardinals the previous two seasons, Brown signed a one-year, $7 million contract on March 14th, with a potential $11 million cap. Brown will now play for Mahomes in Kansas City.
Rashee Rice, another receiving corps member, was present for the exercise as well. With a T-shirt picturing quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ iconic “dad bod” moment from the NFL season, Rice also made fun of his quarterback.
Establishing a quick connection with Brown is essential if Mahomes and the Chiefs are to start 2024 strong. He is probably going to be a big part in Kansas City’s quest to become the first NFL team to win the Super Bowl three times in a row. Brown is one of those receivers who can blow the top off the defense; across his career, he averaged more than 10 yards per grab.
After tight end Travis Kelce and the previously mentioned Rice, Brown will be at least Mahomes’ third option for receiving targets. Wide receiver Marques Valdes-Scantling, a big-play threat akin to Brown but who has dropped eight passes in the last two years, was not re-signed by the Chiefs. In addition, over the previous two years, Brown has dropped eight passes, for what that’s worth.
However, Brown can be a superb pass-catcher when he is performing at a high level. In 2020, during his third season in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens, Brown surpassed 1,000 receiving yards. He also had more than 12.5 yards per reception on average over his first two professional seasons.
Despite playing alongside Kyler Murray, a former college classmate, Brown’s 2022 trade to the Cardinals didn’t work out. Throughout the course of 26 of 34 games that he might have played, Brown was only able to accumulate 1,283 yards and seven touchdowns on 118 receptions due to drops and injuries. With the finest quarterback in the league, he will now have a fresh start in the NFL.
Brown remarked of Mahomes, via NFL.com, “From the outside looking in, he appears like a guy that is very passionate, and I’m a pretty passionate person.””He will stop at nothing to achieve his goal of victory. That’s the kind of person you want to play with; you want to play with someone who will challenge you and help you reach new heights. He seems like one of those kinds of individuals to me.”
Chiefs acquire a low-risk, high-reward player in Mahomes
While Brown isn’t a lock to start in Kansas City, his value as Mahomes’ dependable third option can’t be understated.
As long as Kelce, the veteran tight end, is still competing in the NFL, Mahomes will have Kelce as his undisputed top target.
Since Mahomes took over as the starting quarterback, he has virtually always led the Chiefs in targets, and in 2024, that won’t change. With 79 receptions and seven touchdowns as a rookie, Rice almost broke 1,000 receiving yards, and he went on to develop into a nice secondary pass-catcher.
Following the inconsistent play of players like Kadarius Toney, Skyy Moore, and Valentine-Scantling, the Chiefs were lacking a viable third option on offense. Although they were low-risk players for Kansas City, their contribution didn’t yield quite the same returns as that of Brown.
The best thing Kansas City could have done to address the most pressing problem on the offense was to offer Brown a one-year contract, unless they were prepared to pursue prominent receivers in free agency or the veteran trade market.
Brown isn’t nearly as talented as Keenan Allen, who was dealt to the Bears, or Mike Evans, who inked a large agreement with the Buccaneers, but he also isn’t as costly or hazardous as Calvin Ridley, who inked a huge contract to join the Titans from the Jaguars.
It will take some time to find out whether this agreement works out.
However, for the time being, Brown’s workouts with his new wide receiver and quarterback partner are a big step in the right way for Brown and the Chiefs in 2022.
