Is There Hope For Skyy Moore?
10 repliesThe 2022 draft will go down in history as one of the best ever in terms of early impact to a contender. Few if any Super Bowl winning teams relied as much on rookies to be actual real contributors all the way to the final game of the season.
But not all of the picks were grand slams. Perhaps the most noteworthy disappointment was 2nd round receiver Skyy Moore, whose regular season is mostly remembered for costly punt return fumbles. He did eventually score a touchdown in the Super Bowl, but his overall contributions were severely lacking for a 2nd round pick.
This means he will be a major question mark heading into the 2023 offseason. Can we rely on him to develop into a solid contributor next year? If not, the team may feel the need to invest their limit cap space into a free agent at a position that has becoming increasingly expensive in recent years.
However, there is reason to hope besides the blind optimism of a sports fan. When you look at past receivers who were drafted in the Andy Reid era, there are plenty of examples of guys who contributed little or nothing their rookie years before finding their footing in year 2.
| Year Drafted | Round | Name | Rookie Receiving Yards | 2nd Year Receiving Yards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 3 | Chris Conley | 199 | 530 |
| 2016 | 4 | Demarcus Robinson | 0 | 212 |
| 2016 | 5 | Tyreek Hill | 593 | 1183 |
| 2019 | 2 | Mecole Hardman | 538 | 560 |
| 2022 | 2 | Skyy Moore | 250 | ? |
In this table is every single receiver the Chiefs drafted since Reid became head coach that were in any way a contributor in the receiving game (i.e. excluding guys who didn’t make the team, or only saw a tiny handful of offensive snaps, etc.) As you can see, every single one improved their receiving yards from year 1, and other than Hardman the increase was significant.
The most realistic comparison for Moore would be Chris Conley, who had 199 receiving yards as a rookie (even fewer than Moore!) before posting a solid 530 in his second year. If Moore follows a similar path it isn’t too crazy to think he could get to 600 or 700 receiving yards next year. While those numbers aren’t blowing anybody out of the water, that would make him very much a contributor, and would make the team feel comfortable with him as the 2nd or 3rd best receiver on the team.
Is it to soon to get Hill back? Maybe in a couple of years.
If you forget about the punt returns and only look at his WR reps he showed solid hands and good route running. The ceiling is 600 or so yards and that isn’t bad if he is the 3rd WR receiver. Right now it’s Toney, MVS, and Moore as the top three unless they sign a FA. I think we will either see JuJu or Hardman returning but not both. Or the addition of an equivalent FA.
One thing to keep in mind about Mecole’s numbers is that his rookie season was probably higher in part because Tyreek missed 4 games with the collarbone injury, so he had the speed receiver position to himself. So it was more natural that he wouldn’t have the increase we all hoped for his second year because that was a full WR room. Plus his second year is the season Kelce set the record for TE yardage. We all hoped to see a Tyreek like jump for him, but the fact is that between Kelce, Tyreek and Sammy, there wasn’t a lot of extra receptions to go around.
The difficulty in learning Andy’s offense as a WR is widely accepted, and I think Skyy not coming from a Power 5 conference probably had a bigger adjustment to make than some of the other players that have come in as rookies the last few years – even Tyreek played at OK State before his arrest. Plus, unlike Tyreek and Mecole, Skyy isn’t a pure speed guy and has to make plays within the normal offense.
Right I think with Hardman his relatively big rookie season was a bit of a fluke. On top of what you said, he was given a lot of those short passes.
good contributor
He’s got alot of work to do, thats for sure. Even the TD he did score, I think he’s the one who lined up wrong. I saw a lot of people thought it was TK, but why would Patrick call for motion from the right if that was the call? They would’ve had a WR run that not a TE.
No, I think it was Kelce who lined up wrong
If Moore was on the wrong side, he would have been on the same side as the other WR. He was all alone over there
this^^^ is exactly what happened … identical play to the one Toney caught for a TD on the right side (when Kelce was indeed lined up on the right side, correctly)
Reid said it was a different play. I think it was some sort of option for Mahomes.
well, there’s Moore of a future with the Chiefs for Skyy than for Marcus Kemp … we shall see, one year at a time