K.C. Chiefs work out tight end Mark Vital

Just when you think they’ve reached their limit on interest in tight ends, the K.C. Chiefs have actually spent a bit more time late this week with another free agent option in Mark Vital.

The Chiefs hosted Vital in for a visit on Friday, per the league’s transaction wire, in an effort to likely keep the Rolodex updated on potential players in case a need ever arises.

At this point, the Chiefs are likely employing more tight ends than any other team in the National Football League on their active roster with four players on the depth chart. That sounds even more ludicrous when you realize that there are zero injury concerns at present and they already have the best tight end in the game in Travis Kelce.

Beyond Kelce, the Chiefs have a solid blocking option on the roster in Blake Bell and then two promising young players with potential so strong that the team decided to let valuable young players go at other more “important” positions so they wouldn’t lose either rookie Noah Gray or Jody Fortson.

Mark Vital was brought in for a free agent visit by the Chiefs.

As for Vital, he’s the latest in a string of former college basketball players looking to make the switch to professional football. The Chiefs helped establish this trend early on with the selection of Tony Gonzalez in ’97 and even recent developmental players like Demetrius Harris and Ross Travis were both college basketball players turned tight ends, too. The issue here is that Vital hasn’t played football since middle school.

Vital looks the part at 6’5″, 250 lbs. at present and he even earned a spot on the Seattle Seahawks practice squad earlier this month. However, he clearly was not ready because they waived him just days later. Vital averaged 6.4 points per game and an equal number of rebounds per game in his college career with the Baylor Bears.