The Kansas City Chiefs’ depth at wide receiver is being questioned again by critics following multiple dropped passes in Monday night’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The most notable drop was on the last drive of the game by veteran Marquez Valdes-Scantling, which could’ve resulted in the go-ahead touchdown for Kansas City.
Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy has had to answer many questions throughout the season regarding his receivers’ room’s quality. Monday night’s struggles, especially with the usually sure-handed Valdes-Scantling, raised more as he spoke with reporters via Zoom on Tuesday.
“There’s things that go into that. I think it’s probably everybody’s definition, I know, we all look at the numbers, and then that sort of thing,” Nagy explained. “But there is a lot at the same point in time. He does a lot, well, that sometimes doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. And you know, for instance, you look at the touchdown catch that Travis (Kelce) had that everybody’s gonna read about in the touchdown pass from Pat (Patrick Mahomes) and the catch by Kelce.
“But a lot of reasons why that play worked was because of what MVS (Marquez Valdes-Scantling) did. And sometimes that doesn’t show up in the staff book. And there’s other things that he does, and these players do that, that don’t show up, that we have to make sure that they get credit for behind the scenes. And so he does a lot of that. And I think that’s a credit to him. And that can be very selfless at times, which we love.”
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Valdes-Scantling contributed as a diversion on Travis Kelce’s first-half touchdown reception but was unable to record a catch himself after three targets.
“Production-wise and number-wise. Yeah, he’s not where he was last year. And we do know that we have, hopefully, a bunch of (the) season left.” said Nagy, “And we want to be able to continue to keep working through these things as we have, you know, these different wide receivers, and I know similar to last year, but he’s had a great attitude this whole time, and we just got to keep staying positive.”
The Chiefs return to action in the AFC West on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders, eager to put Monday Night’s collapse behind them with a strong effort on the road.
