How will Juju Smith-Schuster, Chiefs WRs shake out in 2022?

In the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast podcast, Andy Behrens and Matt Harmon look at some new faces in Kansas City and how they will perform with Patrick Mahomes for fantasy purposes.

Video Transcript

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MATT HARMON: Next team up on my list is Kansas City Chiefs. They're an interesting team for me because other than Mahomes and Kelce, this pass-catching corps is entirely been turned-- and Mecole Hardman is still there, for sure. And Mecole Hardman actually could be a decent pick in fantasy this year. I don't think we Mecole Hardman is as bad-- I think he's been an average player, so far through his career. He certainly has made some mistakes, but I think people are more-- there's a lot of burnt takes there with him.

People drafted him in the eighth round, and they got absolutely nothing out of it, even though you should probably be ready and willing to get nothing out of your eighth round picks, more often than you want to admit. But yeah, I think he could be a factor this year. JuJu and MVS such a strange combination there. They gave all this money to MVS, not that much to JuJu, despite the fact JuJu has got a pedigree there and should theoretically fit in with kind of what they need as, like, a big slot, short-to-intermediate guy that they haven't really had before.

Love, love Skyy Moore as a prospect, but is he going to be ready to make a big jump in year one? There's a lot to talk about in this pass-catching corps. There's a lot of people that are already battening down the hatches that I've noticed on Twitter and ready to be in the Skyy Moore camp, or the JuJu camp, or the MVS camp, or the two people in the Hardman camp. So there's people ready to tell you which one is the best pick at ADP, and I have no idea how that's going to work out.

And meanwhile, obviously, this, in the other case, is, like, we're talking about some-- I think Skyy Moore is going to be a great player at some point. But for the most part, we're talking about goofball-level receivers here on the other end of a great quarterback, which is sort of the inverse of what we talked about with Miami, where there are so many new faces.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah.

MATT HARMON: The receivers aren't the appealing part. The appealing part is that they do have the rising tide that lifts all boats there in Patrick Mahomes, on the other end of all of these guys here. And also, by the way, CEH might be a great post-hype sleeper, I hate to say it. But that's one thing-- one news blurb I did catch, while being out for the last couple of weeks in the lead up and aftermath of the wedding, is that CEH was down, like, 160 pounds after gallbladder surgery last year or something.

And you know, Ronald Jones, they didn't pay that guy very much money. So there's a chance, with all of this receiving turnover, maybe-- and the thing with CEH this year is you don't have to draft him in the second round. He's a pretty low-ranked running back. So I don't know, pretty interesting to talk about this whole team, and I have no idea how it's going to pan out.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah, I actually think that the thing that tips it in for the Chiefs and makes them a really strong candidate for this list is that the backfield is quietly maybe as unsettled as the receiving corps. And we have no flipping idea what to do with the receiving corps, right? I've got JuJu on top, based on the fact that he's at least been good at one time. Hardman is so tough for me, because you can see the talent, and you can see Mahomes's level of interest in making him something over the years.

There has always been-- every Chiefs game, there is one moment where Mahomes clearly expects Mecole Hardman to be somewhere other than where he is, right? They haven't shaken that yet, but who cares? If he's getting eight targets, a game that's not going to matter anymore. If you're getting if you're getting four targets a game, it's a huge deal. But at higher volume, it wouldn't be. So I've got JuJu a bit higher, and I've clearly got him higher than almost anyone does.

He's one of those guys who in, like, best ball and mock drafts I am landing, and I'm landing him at a place where I don't even see a lot of risk to it. Because as you say, it's like that seventh, eighth round, where I don't care if I cut that guy. If that's a whiff, that's fine. There's going to be a lot of whiffs, so I'm not particularly burnt by it. But super interesting team. They didn't make my five, but they were really close, and they were definitely under consideration.