Podcast: Ricky Seals-Jones will thrive with Kansas City Chiefs
By Rylan Stiles
Our latest podcast episode focuses on new tight end Ricky Seals-Jones, who has a real chance to thrive in the Chiefs offense.
We all expected this to be a quiet offseason for the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. So far it has lived up to our expectations. From restructuring the Sammy Watkins contract to tagging Chris Jones, the moves from general manager Brett Veach have been pretty standard—including when he inked Ricky Seals-Jones a week ago.
Seals-Jones has untapped potential, and still, at only 25 years old, he can unlock new levels in his game with head coach Andy Reid this season. The Texas A&M product was the typical 5-star recruit that never really figured it all out or lived up to the hype surrounding him. While he was tasked with playing wideout with the Aggies, after going undrafted, he moved to tight end for the sake of his professional career.
Seals-Jones has played in the NFL for three seasons now and none of them have been glamorous for RSJ. During his rookie campaign in Arizona, he was catching passes from a washed-up Carson Palmer, Blaine Gabbert, and Drew Stanton. As if that could not get any worse, he was thrown into the fire in 2018 with Sam Bradford and Josh Rosen under center for the Cardinals.
With the Cleveland Browns last year, he played with great talent on paper, but a frustrating season unfolded with loads of drama, an unhappy diva of a wide receiver, a terribly regressed gunslinger at quarterback, and something called a Freddie Kitchens trying to hold one of the most dysfunctional organizations together on the field.
Seals-Jones will now serve as Travis Kelce‘s backup for the defending Super Bowl Champs. He gets to play with an offense that features one of the league’s greatest offensive minds at head coach and the NFL’s best young quarterback as well.
Fortunately for the Chiefs, Seals-Jones is a huge upgrade from the likes of Blake Bell, Demetrius Harris, and Anthony Fasano. He has shown flashes of the potential, with eight career touchdowns to his name and nearly 800 receiving yards, to be a quality tight end in this league.
Being a former wide receiver, he has very good speed for the position, which means he will fit right in with an offensive group rightly nicknamed the “Legion of Zoom.” With Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins, and Mecole Hardman all taking priority for a defense, RSJ could find himself on the receiving end of some solid targets targets from Patrick Mahomes.
Typically, Andy Reid uses his second tight end to stay in and block, but he has also not had a second tight end with this kind of upside and ability as a pass-catcher. I am all for giving Reid more weapons, and that is exactly what Ricky Seals-Jones is. This offseason the Kansas City Chiefs have upgraded that TE2 spot from players you would expect to have no impact on the squad, to a guy that can legitimately thrive in this offense.
I talked more about this with fellow AA contributors Sterling Holmes and Grant Tuttle on this week’s Arrowhead Addict Podcast. We also discussed the upcoming NFL Draft, the aforementioned Sammy Watkins deal, and more!