Arrowheadlines: Alex Smith shares why he thinks Kelce and Mahomes are so successful together

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2024 NFL Rank: Predicting top 100 players for this season | ESPN

1. Patrick Mahomes

QB | Chiefs

Age: 28

2023 rank: 1

Mahomes is ranked No. 1 for the fifth straight year and looked energized enough at training camp to potentially reach a sixth straight in 2025. He described last season as no fun because of the struggles in the passing game, despite the Chiefs winning a second consecutive Super Bowl. Starting the upcoming season on the right track, he repeatedly pushed the ball down the field during camp to speedy rookie Xavier Worthy. His intent and resolve to change mistakes from last season seem clear. — Adam Teicher

Alex Smith digs deep in interview with Chiefs TE Travis Kelce | Chiefs Wire

Kelce caught up with Smith during a recent interview on Sirius XM and spoke about his relationship with Mahomes ahead of the Chiefs' championship defense campaign.

Check out what Kelce had to say in this video, which was posted by SiriusXM NFL Radio on Twitter:

Bears' Caleb Williams and Giants' Malik Nabers headline preseason NFL All-Rookie Team | CBS Sports

Jayden Hicks

Kansas City has done such a great job identifying and developing secondary players in recent years. Hicks may be next in line in their bid to field a financially sustainable Super Bowl contender. The Washington State product stuffed the stat sheet last season with 2.5 sacks, 2 interceptions and 1 forced fumble for the Cougars.

NFL Team Needs: Prioritizing Every Roster's Biggest Weaknesses After Preseason Week 3 | Bleacher Report

Add Now: RB Kendre Miller, New Orleans Saints (trade)

The Chiefs are set to go into the season with Isiah Pacheco and Clyde Edwards-Helaire as their primary ball-carriers. They have a lot of experience with both of them, but there isn't much depth after that and running back is one of the most injury-prone positions.

Kendre Miller's stock in New Orleans isn't very high due to a series of injuries he has suffered, but the Chiefs have taken chances on players whose careers were off to rocky starts before and there's enough to like about the former third-round pick to give him a shot.

2024 NFL Roster Cuts: Predicting the Biggest Names Who Could Hit the Market | Bleacher Report

Kadarius Toney, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City may opt to keep Toney as insurance as free-agent addition Marquise Brown continues to recover from a preseason shoulder injury. With Rashee Rice, Brown, Justin Watson and rookie first-round pick Xavier Worthy also on the roster, though, Toney is no lock to make the active roster.

The Chiefs have Toney listed as a fourth-string receiver on their unofficial preseason depth chart.

Kansas City can't save any cap space by releasing him, but it may decide he's just not reliable enough to keep. The Chiefs are hoping to make another Super Bowl run this season, and they can't really afford to waste a roster spot on a player they didn't trust during last year's postseason.

11 Tips to Win Your Fantasy Football League | The Ringer

5. Get a Quarterback Who Runs

Four of the top five quarterbacks this year are rushing quarterbacks: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, and Anthony Richardson (the one guy in the top five who isn't an elite rusher is Patrick Mahomes, who is the exception that proves the rule). As long as fantasy leagues' rules continue to dictate that a rushing yard is worth 2.5 times a passing yard, this trend will stick around. So the key is to try to snag one of the top rushing quarterbacks around the fourth round. If they don't make it that far, look for someone like Richardson or Murray in the 50s or 60s (Murray, on ESPN, is shockingly ranked in the 90s). Richardson has elite rushing upside. Murray ran for 11 touchdowns in 2020 and is healthy once again. Richardson has shades of Hurts in 2020 and is being propped up by the hype surrounding him.

Chiefs bring back WR JuJu Smith-Schuster – but why? | USA Today

Rashee Rice, the Chiefs' WR1 as a rookie (79 catches for 938 yards and a team-high 7 TD receptions) is likely to face NFL discipline at some point after notoriously being involved in a six-car crash in Dallas, where he was driving a Lamborghini nearly 120 mph, according to police. Rice is facing one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious bodily injury and six counts of collision involving injury. However the league doesn't typically mete out suspensions until the legal process has concluded.

Around the NFL

Tua Tagovailoa says he hasn't heard from Flores since criticism | ESPN

During an appearance on "The Dan Le Batard Show" that was released last week, Tagovailoa called out the former Dolphins head coach for his perceivably brash coaching style, emphasizing current coach Mike McDaniel's contrasting, supportive style.

"To put it in simplest terms, if you woke up every morning and I told you [that] you suck at what you did, that you don't belong doing what you do, that you shouldn't be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven't earned this right, and then you have somebody else come in and tell you, 'Dude, you are the best fit for this,'" he said. "How would it make you feel listening to one or the other, you see what I'm saying?

"And then you hear it, no matter what it is, the good or the bad, you hear it more and more, you start to believe that. I don't care who you are. You could be the president of the United States, you have a terrible person telling you things that you don't want to hear or probably shouldn't be hearing, you're going to start believing that about yourself. And so that's what sort of ended up happening. It was, it's basically been what two years of training that out of not just me but a couple of guys as well that have been here my rookie year all the way until now."

Cowboys, WR CeeDee Lamb agree to terms on four-year, $136 million extension | NFL.com

The receiver has agreed to a four-year, $136 million extension with Dallas, NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported on Monday. Lamb will also receive $100 million guaranteed and a wide receiver-record $38 million signing bonus, per Rapoport and Pelissero.

The deal will pay Lamb the second-highest average annual salary at $34 million per year, coming in just behind Minnesota's Justin Jefferson (four years, $35 million per year).

10 things we learned in the 2024 NFL preseason: Raiders, Steelers still have plenty of QB concerns | CBS Sports

10. The Chargers are a beautiful mystery

Maybe it's because Justin Herbert was absent for a long stretch of the summer, or the Easton Stick-led replacement offense didn't muster a lot of confidence, or Jim Harbaugh's zany quotes have drawn more headlines than actual on-field competitions in Los Angeles. But it feels like Harbaugh's Chargers are entering the real schedule as somewhat of an overlooked operation, which could work in their favor.

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

Chiefs Roster: Team re-signs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster

The former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver gained 933 yards and three touchdowns (plus a Super Bowl ring) during his single season in Kansas City. That allowed him to sign a three-year, $25.5 million contract with the New England Patriots the following spring.

But after coming into the year with a lingering knee injury — along with missing two games with a concussion and going on the Reserve/Injured list after an ankle injury in Week 11 — Smith-Schuster appeared in just 11 of the Patriots' 2023 games (accumulating 29 receptions on 47 targets for 260 yards and a touchdown).

The Patriots released him on August 9.

It has been widely believed that Smith-Schuster's next team would be able to sign him for the NFL minimum of $1.2 million for a player with seven more or more credited seasons, because he is still being paid $7 million that was guaranteed to him for this season in his New England contract. Any salary he earns elsewhere will reduce his Patriots cap hit by that amount.

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