The Kansas City Chiefs still have plenty of wide receiver help on the practice squad even after releasing Daurice Fountain on Monday.
On Monday, the Kansas City Chiefs made a minor move that came as quite a surprise with the release of wide receiver Daurice Fountain. It made more sense when it was revealed that Fountain had requested his release knowing that other teams would present greater opportunities for playing time. In that way, the Chiefs made a classy move as an organization to honor the wishes of a player—one who has been a solid teammate since he joined the Chiefs over a year ago.
That said, the NFL is all about winning and losing and the Chiefs also had good reasons to keep Fountain around. You never know what might happen in a given week in terms of injuries or player availability, and the Chiefs have watched a single position fall apart before. Just imagine if the Chiefs had given someone like Andrew Wylie a chance to seek more playing time elsewhere back in 2020.
The good news for Chiefs Kingdom is that the team’s own depth on the practice squad is what allowed them to be a bit more generous with Fountain in the first place. While Fountain was an excellent teammate and reliable special teams performer, the Chiefs also have other such players on the roster on whom they can depend at a position that looks very deep these days given seven games’ worth of chemistry together.
Obviously, the Chiefs had no current place for Fountain on the active roster. JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling have looked better with each passing week. Mecole Hardman can say the same after getting over an early season ankle injury, and Skyy Moore is going nowhere as the team’s second-round pick. From there, Justin Watson has undoubtedly earned a role and quarterback Patrick Mahomes seems to have a special appreciation for his potential.
On Sunday, in their dominant win over the 49ers, the Chiefs leaned on the special teams’ prowess of Marcus Kemp, who rewarded K.C. for their trust in him. At that point, Fountain was stuck on the practice squad with no foreseeable path to playing time minus a random injury that might or might not occur.
For those worried about who could potentially respond to a roster need if something happened to one of the aforementioned players, the good news is that the Chiefs have plenty of depth. Let’s look over the quick options.