On the Move: Juju Smith-Schuster on the Chiefs

When the Chiefs signed Juju Smith-Schuster this offseason, it looked like Patrick Mahomes would finally have a capable WR2 to pair with Tyreek Hill, but after Hill’s sudden and jarring trade to the Dolphins, Juju appears to be a No. 1 again. The last time we saw Smith-Schuster as a clear-cut leading man, the results weren’t satisfying. Will it change with Mahomes at the helm?

He began his career with a bang, coming out of the gate with a 917-yard, seven-touchdown rookie campaign and followed that up with an elite, 1,426-yard, seven-touchdown sophomore effort. His success was part of the reason the Steelers felt comfortable relieving themselves of the burden of Antonio Brown’s personality in 2019, but that is when Juju’s warts began to appear. He struggled mightily both on the field, and with injuries, finishing with just 552 yards and three scores in 12 games. He rebounded to a degree in 2020, catching 97 passes and scoring nine touchdowns, but failing to get to 1,000 yards. Last season was an injury-marred disaster in which he caught just 15 passes in five games.

While the raw numbers suggest Smith-Schuster is capable of returning to elite fantasy status with a QB like Mahomes running the show, there are massive red flags if you look beyond the favorable role. Per Reception Perception, he was a flat-out below average receiver when he wasn’t running slants or routes to the flat. On those routes he saw success 80% and 90 % of the time, respectively, but those aren’t the passes that Patrick Mahomes is interested in throwing. That might work if Smith-Schuster was working off of Hill terrifying secondaries down the field, but with Hill gone the Chiefs need Juju to be a bit more dynamic than that. Juju was terrible on nine routes, succeeding just 33% of the time, and, more alarmingly, he was successful just 51% of the time against man coverage, and 50% of the time vs. press coverage. These weren’t new issues either; in 2020, a year in which we’ve highlighted his strong fantasy output, he was even worse vs. man (50.8%) and vs. press (46%). In Pittsburgh he lined up in the slot 78.5% of the time, and 38% of his routes were slants. The Steelers knew his limitations, and were able to hide them because they had studs (Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool) on the outside. The Chiefs don’t currently have that, and it could make for ugly offense. Smith-Schuster’s 2020 WR DVOA – we’ll ignore the number in 2021 out of fairness for him only playing in five games – was an abysmal -10%, placing him 69th in the NFL in that metric tied with Golden Tate.

Now it is possible that Mecole Hardman makes a leap as an outside receiver with a lot more opportunity, or that Marquez Valdes-Scantling can replace some of Hill’s production on the outside. If that’s the case, Smith-Schuster should be able to put up some numbers if he’s operating almost exclusively from the slot like he did in Pittsburgh with the best QB in football throwing him the rock. But Travis Kelce is now the team’s No. 1 pass-catcher by a long shot, and until MVS proves himself as a consistent threat, Juju is still going to get more attention defensively than he did as a Steeler. Plus, it’s hard to believe that Mahomes will be content to keep hitting Juju on slants and short passes to the flat. On paper, this move would appear like a great one for Smitth-Schuster’s fantasy stock, but based on his strengths – and more importantly, his weaknesses – Juju looks like a flashy fantasy trap.