Juju Smith-Schuster film review: What do the Chiefs do with the free agent WR?
Looking at Smith-Schuster's film from 2022 to try and determine the path forward for Kansas City.
Free agency is almost upon us!
On Monday, the “tampering period” begins for the NFL and teams are officially allowed to talk to players prior to the ability to sign them on March 15. Of course, what that actually means is teams that have already been tampering and talking to agents (which is, make no mistake, literally all of them) will announce deals that have already reached “handshake” status and they will become public. Every now and then one of those “handshake” deals falls apart, but generally speaking teams/agents/players make it work.
That means we have almost NO time to get done the two things that need to get done. My annual “If I were Brett Veach, free agency edition” article will come out tomorrow… at some point. But first, we need to talk about Juju Smith-Schuster.
There’s not a lot of time, so let’s get right into it. The Chiefs need to make a decision regarding Smith-Schuster as a free agent, and there are a lot of factors to consider with regards to cap space and overall team-building strategy. But before we can decide any of that, it makes sense to talk about how Juju performed for the Chiefs in 2022 beyond the box score and what the team stands to lose (or gain) based on what they do with him in free agency.
With that in mind, I reviewed each snap by Smith-Schuster from multiple games last year throughout the course of the season. While I’ve already written how I would approach his free agency if I were Brett Veach, I think it’s important to provide details about him as a Chief last year. Where did he win? What did he bring to the table? And were there areas he fell short that would give the team pause in bringing him back at a high price?
Let’s talk some film.