Bouncing on and off the Texans’ active roster and practice squad this year, Chris Conley is returning to his initial NFL home. The Chiefs picked up the veteran wide receiver on Thursday, Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com tweets. It is a practice squad deal.
Conley played for the Chiefs from 2015-18, being part of the franchise’s first Patrick Mahomes-directed offense. Conley, 29, has spent the past four seasons with AFC South clubs but will now move into position to potentially help out as a depth piece with the AFC West favorites.
A 2015 third-round pick, Conley played a supporting role as the Travis Kelce–Tyreek Hill partnership formed during the late 2010s. While he totaled 530 receiving yards for the 2016 Chiefs — Alex Smith‘s penultimate starter season in Kansas City — the Georgia product broke through in terms of touchdowns during Mahomes’ MVP season. Conley caught five TD passes in 2018 and then matched that with the Jags a year later.
Conley caught 47 passes for a career-high 775 yards with Jacksonville in 2019 but was unable to make a similar impact in Houston. Signing for $2M and $1.5M over the past two years, Conley caught just 22 passes in 18 games. With four years of experience with Andy Reid, Conley will rejoin a Chiefs team that has retooled at wide receiver following the blockbuster Hill trade.
The Chiefs lost niche contributors Byron Pringle and Demarcus Robinson in free agency and reformed a committee-type approach at the position centered around additions JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Those two have joined contract-year speedster Mecole Hardman and second-round rookie Skyy Moore in a still-uncertain Kansas City receiving corps — one that defers to Kelce in Mahomes’ pecking order.
More must-reads: