While Kansas City Chiefs third-round pick Chris Conley hasn't had much of a chance to make an impression on head coach Andy Reid and the rest of the team's decision-makers, a recent report from Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports suggests that the team is still "really excited" over his potential.
Conley, 6-foot-2, 213-pounds, was selected by Reid and Chiefs GM John Dorsey out of Georgia in past April due to his size and his immense physical gifts. While Conley failed to fill out the stat sheet while with the Bulldogs, he wowed coaches and scouts alike with a scouting combine effort that was worthy of the hype it created.
"Tall receiver who showed off blazing speed and explosiveness in the combine," NFL.com's Lance Zierlein wrote in his pre-draft profile of Conley. "Conley displays a natural feel for the position and has hand strength and body control to make tough, contested catches. Lacked gaudy numbers in run-heavy Georgia offense, but his productivity per catch will certainly be noticed by NFL teams. Issues with catching the ball consistently at the combine raised some eyebrows."
In four seasons at Georgia, Conley managed just 117 receptions for 1,938-yards and 20 touchdowns. He never posted more than 45 receptions or 657-yards in any given year. While some of that can likely be pinned on Georgia's lack of an elite signal-caller during his collegiate tenure, some of it is also on Conley's own shortcomings.
He's a very intelligent player, but lacks polish in his route running and is too easily bested by press coverage. As a bigger player, it also takes Conley time to get up to speed and if he's thrown off his route by a corner, can effectively be taken out of the play.
With prized free agent Jeremy Maclin brought in this offseason and De'Anthony Thomas making the fulltime switch to wideout, there won't be pressure on Conley to produce right away. But considering he possesses size that none of the other Chiefs receivers have, he may have a unique route to playing time in Year One, assuming he can get back healthy and continue his development.
Fortunately for Conley, now that he's back from the knee injury that sidelined him for much of Kansas City's offseason work to this point, it seems like he's set for some big minutes in the Chiefs' next preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks.
"It will be good to see Chris," wide receivers coach David Culley said, via the Kansas City Star. "He's had a good week of practice. He hasn't had any setbacks with the injury. He was able to finish off practice today without soreness, which is a good sign. So we're looking forward to him getting some pretty good playing time."
