MIAMI -- When drops back to pa s, opposing defenses have a whole lot to worry about. Mahomes can make every throw that exists in the universe, and he is more than willing to try some that don't exist until the moment he makes them. He'll chuck it 60 yards down the field, off his back foot, while rolling out to edge. He'll throw it with his left hand or while looking in the opposite direction.Andy Reid schemes his skill players into open space more consistently than just about any play-caller in the league. Only 12.2 percent of Mahomes' pa ses this season were thrown into tight coverage, per NFL.com's Next Gen Stats. That was the third-lowest rate in the league Jacob Waguespack Jersey  among 39 qualifying quarterbacks. It's almost exactly identical to the 12.4 percent rate he posted during his magical 2018 season.As if the position Reid puts them in to succeed weren't enough, the have also a sembled one of the fastest crews of pa s-catchers in the NFL. , arguably the NFL's best , ran the 40-yard dash in 4.29 seconds. Speedster rookie ran it in 4.33 seconds, and that somehow seems slower than he runs on the field. is practically the snail of this group, having run the 40 in 4.43 seconds. None of those players, though, is really Mahomes' primary option.Instead, it's , who combines the po se sion and speed elements into one tight end-sized package. At 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds, Kelce is bigger than just about any player who could reasonably be used to cover him. He's more fluid than nearly all of them as well, and though he was clocked at 4.61 seconds in the 40, he appears to play far faster than that. His combination of size and skill and athleticism has made him the most productive tight end in the NFL.In five consecutive seasons, Kelce has posted at least 72 catches, 875 yards, and four touchdowns. There are only two other tight ends (Tony Gonzalez and ) who have had five or more such seasons total, let alone in a row. Kelce also has at least 83 catches for 1,038 yards in each of the past four seasons, and no tight end in the history of the league has ever done that more than four times. He's so good that even Jon Embree, the tight ends coach of , couldn't help but fanboy out about him at Super Bowl Opening Night."He has an uncanny ability to get open," Embree said. "Some guys get open because they're great route runners. Some guys get open because they're big or whatever. He's a little bit of a combination of that. He has a great feel for setting guys up and then putting his foot in the ground and exploding out of it. And he does a great job of playing outside of his frame. He doesn't let the ball get on his body a lot. So now he has this 6-foot-5 radius where, now it's like a 7-footer. And then he does a good job of he's very deceptive after the catch, when he takes off and runs. You'll see him running away from people and it doesn't look like he's really running. When George is running, it looks like he's flying. And Kelce, when he's running you don't realize it and then all of a sudden he's in the end zone."Embree has been with San Francisco since 2017, which means he was part of the proce s that led to the team making Kittle the 146th pick of the draft, and the ninth tight end off the board. The Niners nabbed him with the second pick of the fifth round, one spot behind and three ahead of Jordan Leggett, who have combined for fewer receiving yards (199) than Kittle has catches (216) in their respective three-year careers. But in 2013, Embree was the tight ends coach for the . And the guy he wanted then was Travis Kelce."I was begging to draft him," Embree said. "And obviously Kansas City took him. I got to spend some time with Travis. I spent about a day, e sentially the whole day with him. We hit it off. Just a great guy."Kelce becoming the receiving threat he has been during his time in the NFL is actually a bit of a surprise. During his fir
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