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, before moving on for a Jaguars free agency deal. Conley, 29, has spent the past three-plus 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 Conley 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 $2MM and $1.5MM over the past two years, Conley caught just 22 passes in 18 Texans 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 multiple niche contributors — Byron Pringle and Demarcus Robinson — in free agency and reformed a committee-type approach at the position centered around UFA 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.