Kansas City Chiefs Sign WR JuJu Smith-Schuster

NFL Offseason – The Kansas City Chiefs may not be able to match the spending of their other AFC West rivals, but they’re not taking this offseason bonanza lying down. They have upgraded their receiving corps by signing ex-Steeler JuJu Smith-Schuster to a one-year, $10.75 million deal.

Smith-Schuster was one of the more interesting free agents available this offseason. As a rookie, he led the league with a 37.3% receiving DVOA, and was sixth with 317 DYAR. That got him a bigger workload in 2018, and he handled it reasonably well, finishing 17th in both DVOA and DYAR. Since then, however, his numbers have been terrible. He’s been outside the top 60 in DYAR in each of the last three years, bottoming out at -34.7% last season in limited action. His -47 DYAR was also a career low, despite being targeted just 28 times.

Obviously, a significant part of that dropoff came with Ben Roethlisberger’s arm turning into a wet noodle, as well as the Mason Rudolph/Duck Hodges year. It also coincides with Antonio Brown’s departure, thrusting Smith-Schuster into a top receiver role he wasn’t quite able to handle. The question is how much those outside influences have contributed to his decline, as opposed to being his own problems.

This is a great deal for both sides. Going from Roethlisberger to Patrick Mahomes is a massive upgrade, and he’ll get to revert into being a third passing option behind Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. That’s a much friendlier offensive situation to work in; he has every opportunity to show the league that yes, he can still produce at a high level when surrounded by the right talent, and then cash in with a long-term deal in 2023.

As for the Chiefs, they’ve been looking for a third option behind Kelce and Hill since Sammy Watkins left – the Mecole Hardmans, Byron Pringles and Josh Gordons of the world haven’t exactly set the world on fire. Smith-Schuster is an excellent complement; he’ll be able to operate underneath the deep routes of the top receivers and turn short passes into large YAC plays; Smith-Schuster was a regular figure near the top of the YAC+ leaderboards before these past three seasons. He’ll mostly stick in the slot, taking Pringle’s workload and hopefully improving upon it. It’s not as splashy as some of the other moves we’ve seen in the AFC West, but the Chiefs already were atop the heap; they had less need for splash.

JuJu Smith-Schuster Overall Impact: Hardman and Pringle combined for 113 short targets and 30 deep targets last season, and now Pringle is gone. Hardman will still get a decent chunk of the work, but Smith-Schuster should step up as that third receiving option, and the primary YAC guy on the team.

JuJu Smith-Schuster Fantasy Impact: Smith-Schuster was a top-15 receiver in 2017 and 2018. Even in 2020, he still managed to hit WR22 from sheer volume. Scott Spratt’s projections have Smith-Schuster rebounding closer to his numbers from his first two seasons – and having Hill and Kelce take away defensive attention certainly won’t hurt.

JuJu Smith-Schuster’s early KUBIAK projections @fboutsiders

93-966-7.1 (13th WR)

Smith-Schuster has been looking to rediscover the magic of his breakout 2018 season, and he may have found it in KC with Mahomes at QB and with Hill and Kelce drawing a lot of defensive attention.

— Scott Spratt (@Scott_Spratt) March 18, 2022