How the Chiefs reached Super Bowl with new-look WR corps after Tyreek Hill’s departure

Offseason concerns about how the Kansas City Chiefs’ offense would adapt to life without wide receiver Tyreek Hill were misplaced.

At the time Hill was traded to the Miami Dolphins, that anxiety — which apparently didn’t extend into the Chiefs’ locker room — seemed reasonable enough. After all, the Chiefs were also bidding farewell to Byron Pringle and Demarcus Robinson, key contributors in the passing game.

So how is life working out for the Chiefs in the post-Tyreek era?

Kansas City finished the 2022 regular season with the No. 1-ranked offense in the league (413.6 yards per game), the No. 1-ranked passing attack in the league (297.8) and the league’s No. 1-ranked scoring offense (29.2 points per game).

Oh, and quarterback Patrick Mahomes led the league in passing, with 5,240 total yards, and touchdown passes (41).

Mahomes, who garnered first-team All-Pro honors for the second time in his career, did it with an overhauled corps of receivers that includes two new starters: JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Fellow newcomers included Justin Watson, rookie Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney, whom the team acquired in a midseason trade with the New York Giants. Mecole Hardman was the lone carryover from last season’s roster.

As the Chiefs prepare to take on Philadelphia in Super Bowl LVII on Sunday, we can pardon Eagles cornerback Darius Slay for being impressed with what Mahomes has accomplished without Hill, Pringle and Robinson.

“I’m not going to say he doesn’t need guys like ‘Cheetah’ (Hill) and all them because everybody needs a player, but it just shows how great of a quarterback he is,” Slay told The Star during Monday’s Super Bowl LVII Opening Night festivities. “Everybody is trying to say he’s not great because he had those guys, but now he’s showing how great he is without those guys.

“Hats off to him. He’s had an amazing season this year ... High praise for that man.”

Mahomes certainly commands a lot of credit for being the glue of the Chiefs’ offense, but his new cast of pass catchers deserves its share, too.

STORIES ABOUT THE NEW GUYS

During last offseason’s workouts, Chiefs wide receiver coach Joe Bleymaier knew he had a heavy lift on his hands. His task: bring together a roomful of new faces.

A first-team All Pro, Hill was an accomplished and proven commodity, having totaled four 1,000-yard receiving seasons in a Chiefs uniform.

Instead of trying to forecast his new guys’ production, Bleymaier said each man would have an opportunity to write his own story.

Challenge accepted and met:

• Smith-Schuster became a force on underneath routes, his specialty, and finished the season with 78 catches for 933 yards and three touchdowns;

• Valdes-Scantling brought downfield speed, totaling 42 catches for 687 yards and two touchdowns;

• Hardman, who recently returned to injured reserve, battled an abdominal and pelvic injury in the second half of the season; he still finished with 25 catches for 297 yards and four touchdowns, plus 31 yards rushing and two touchdowns on four carries;

• Moore encountered his share of adversity, losing three punts as a returner, but rebounded to finish with 22 catches for 250 yards;

• Watson hauled in 15 catches for 315 yards and two touchdowns, averaging a team-high 21 yards per catch;

• and Toney, the latecomer, contributed 14 catches for 171 yards and two touchdowns, as well as 59 yards and a touchdown on five carries; he also became the Chiefs’ primary punt returner down the stretch.

That’s a combined 196 catches for 2,653 yards and 13 touchdowns for the Chiefs’ revamped receiver corps.

Not bad at all.

“One of the things I’m most proud of this group is we had some injuries, we had some ups and downs, but each week somebody stepped up to make plays to win a game,” Watson said. “I think that was most evident in the AFC Championship Game, when we had three receivers go down — I was ruled out before the game even started. To see guys continue to step up is kind of what we’ve been about all season.”

While none of the Chiefs’ current receivers enjoyed a Tyreek Hill-level season, they brought a different look to the offense and complemented each other well. The Chiefs had size, speed and versatile skill-sets at their disposal.

Plus, opponents could no longer game-plan against a single threat.

“It’s hard for people to handle,” Moore said. “When you throw like five, six weapons at a team at a time, it’s got to be hard for them to deal with. … It’s hard to defend, for sure.”

Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill, who practices against the Chiefs’ receivers every week, noticed a difference in this group’s collective makeup.

“They don’t have the speed that Tyreek has, but these guys are very intelligent, they’re very smart and they find a way to make plays,” Thornhill said. “These guys are locked in every week.

“Pat and those guys have a big-time chemistry and Pat is finding a way to spread the ball a lot more this year. That’s what makes our offense more dynamic this season than the past year.”

Bleymaier said each player set aside personal statistics for the good of the team.

“They put away their individual milestones, stats and just really bought in together,” he said. “If there’s three guys on the field, if there’s two, if there’s just one, (it’s) ‘What’s my role on this play to just try and get yards and downs?’ And they really bought into that.”

It certainly helped that the first-year Chiefs wideouts all seemed to get along and buy into what the franchise was trying to do.

“My role was just to step back and show them the big picture,” Bleymaier said, “show them that we had the potential to be a great offense and really give defenses problems if we could stay one step ahead — never let them know who was getting the ball when or on what looks.

“But that took them buying in, and they really did take ownership of the offense and the year. So, as a coach, that was fun to watch because you can step back and let those guys really play. They took us where we are today.”

Moore agreed.

“Put all of us together and we’ve got a good story,” the rookie said. “We all bounce (ideas) off each other, we all take ideas off each other and it’s just a good room.”

ONE LAST CHAPTER

The book on the 2022 season isn’t closing just yet because the Chiefs have one more game to play.

It just happens to be for the league championship, which brings us back to Bleymaier saying he wants these receivers to write their own story.

“I guess it’s still being written,” Valdes-Scantling said. “The season is not over yet. We have one more game to play. You can ask me that question after Sunday and I’ll be able to give you a better answer then.”

Until then, the Chiefs’ receivers can take satisfaction in knowing they helped their new team to a 14-3 regular-season record, seventh straight AFC West title and No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.

Bleymaier, meanwhile, can’t help but feel a sense of pride in seeing what his retooled position group has already accomplished.

“Hopefully the ending is still to be written, but they came together — the whole group of wide receivers, the new guys, the young guys, the returning vets,” he said. “They came together and really made the team their own in 2022.”