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By Aaron Becker
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The Kansas City Chiefs traded for Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Josh Downs at the NFL's trade deadline on Tuesday, and he has already been making an early impression on the team.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes shared with reporters on Wednesday just how excited he is to start throwing to his new playmaker.
“I think you can tell just the intellect and how he’s able to pick stuff up and that he’s a professional, that he knows what he’s doing and he wants to come in and just compete and to have success, and he wants to win. And so, I’m excited for that,” Mahomes said via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “And then you can just see him interacting with the other receivers in the room. You can tell that there’s going to be a great cohesion there, and that’s the type of guys you want on the team, that want to compete and that want to win.”
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Downs has been one of the more underrated wide receivers since entering the league as a third-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, recording 231 catches for 2,494 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Much of Downs success has come against man coverage, which is exactly what Mahomes is excited to take advantage of against opposing defenses.
“He runs routes really well,” Mahomes said. “He sets them up really well where he will run a route early in the game that he sets up for another one later in the game. And then he has really good feel, you can tell, obviously, playing in the system that he has, he has a lot of read-type routes, and you can tell he knows how to get himself open, settle in the right zones, and win versus man [coverage] when he can.
“And so, I think it will be an easy transition for him to kind of do that stuff in our offense. Then, with how we do things, he can play a lot of different positions as we move receivers and tight ends around.”
Downs joins a Chiefs wide receiver room featuring Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, Cyrus Allen and Jalen Royals. So, only time will tell how much of an impact he will make and how soon.
However, Mahomes believes the Chiefs offense is built perfectly for Downs and his new teammates will do the rest.
“[W]e do a great job of kind of moving guys in and out of every single position, and so guys know the entire concepts of the plays,” Mahomes said. “We’re very detailed with how we call the plays in the huddle, which will help him out a ton.
“Then when he doesn’t know, being able to talk to me in the huddle or talk to the guys as they’re breaking the huddle, and that usually helps when the guys like each other. And so, it’s good to have a guy that you can tell everybody’s going to like, and that he has his head on the right way, and he’s going to make sure that he’s going to do whatever it takes to win.”
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