Kansas City Chiefs rookie WR Skyy Moore has turned some heads during the early portion of training camp.
While the pads won’t come on until next Monday, Moore has continued to take advantage of his opportunities to make plays in practice. Sure, he’s going through some of the normal adjustments to the pro game that rookies deal with during their first NFL training camp, but he’s also proving to be physically and mentally tough.
That toughness hasn’t gone unnoticed by the team’s star quarterback, who expects some big things from Moore this season, at least based on what he’s seen so far.
“He’s a tough player,” Patrick Mahomes told reporters after Friday’s practice. “He’s smaller as far as height, but he’s thicker as a receiver. I think you can see that he’s making a lot of tough contested catches over the middle. He’s thinking a lot because he’s a rookie getting thrown into the offense and we’re not holding back at all. You can tell, when he knows what he’s doing, he runs some great routes and has great releases. I think he can be a big part of our offense moving forward.”
As training camp rages on, Mahomes expects Moore to continue to gain a mastery of the offense. In doing so, he’ll gain the trust of the coaching staff and the quarterbacks.
After getting open quite a bit during Thursday practices, but not receiving much in the way of targets, Moore saw greater opportunities on Friday. He even managed to have one of the best catches of the day during the course of practice.
“Yeah, I think he’s getting more and more trust within the coaching staff and within me — and that just comes with reps,” Mahomes said. “I give him the chances to make plays. When you watch the film, you might choose to throw it on one side and you look to the other side and you see he’s getting open. Then you come back and put that in your head and you’re like, ‘Alright, tomorrow I might give him a chance to make a play on that one.’ I think you saw that today with that catch down the field where he kind of dove and made a big contested catch. Even though he’s not the tallest guy, he can make those tough catches and build the trust of the quarterbacks.”
Moore seems to have some momentum right now, but the true test will be whether he can continue to get open and make plays when the pads come on next week.
