Kansas City hasn’t had a solid second tight end since Jason Dunn retired in 2007 and ever since Travis Kelce became an unquestioned starter in 2014, it’s been nothing but a revolving door of mediocre talent that seems to diminish the further you go down the tight end depth chart.
So when Kansas City traded up to get Noah Gray in the fifth round of the draft this past spring, it was definitely a move that turned some heads inside the Chiefs Kingdom. The thought of two athletic tight ends playing on the field at the same time, on an offense that is as lethal as the Chiefs, is exactly the sort of thing that’ll keep opposing defensive coordinators up at night.
Gray spoke with reporters on Saturday and said this year’s group of rookies were lucky to have a full in-person minicamp, as compared to the virtual meeting players were forced to have last season.
“OTAs were really a blessing for us,” Gray told reporters on Saturday. “I don’t know how the rookies last year did it, so I think we’ve got to give a lot of credit to those guys who are sophomores now in the league. But going through OTAs really helped just from a knowledge standpoint, just understanding the basic concepts that this offense asks you to know. So, it was definitely a huge help from that perspective.”
Although he wasn’t an attendee at Travis Kelce’s “Tight End University”, Gray still views the next few weeks as an excellent opportunity to learn from the best tight end in the league and credits all of his fellow tight end teammates for helping through the early stages of his development.
“It’s tremendous. Like I said on draft day, I don’t think there’s anywhere else I’d rather be in the country,” Gray said. “To be able to learn under Travis Kelce, one of the best tight ends in the league, right now it’s a blessing. To come out here and to be able to gain that knowledge from him and to learn from him every day and to be able to visualize and watch him on the field, that’s been something that’s been extremely key to me coming out and being able to execute my assignment. Even guys like Blake, guys like Nick, those guys have been in the system and they’ve been tremendous in helping me out with my development and just being able to come out here and execute what I need to do.”
So far, Andy Reid has only allowed his players to engage in passing camps, meaning the team hasn’t worked on blocking as of yet. For Gray, blocking is an area in his game that drastically needs to improve.
“What I need to work on, just everything,” Gray said. “Out here today, there were a lot of things that in OTAs I was asked to work on that I need to keep building on. Route-running, blocking—we haven’t put pads on yet but when blocking comes that’s going to be something that’s going to need to continue to progress. But there are a lot of things in the route-running game that I still need to get better at. I’m still asking questions. Jody [Fortson] has been phenomenal, when Travis [Kelce] gets back he’s been a great teacher and mentor, and really all the other tight ends like Nick [Keizer], all those other guys, Evan [Baylis], and Blake [Bell], they’re just really a blessing to be teammates and be a part of. So, really a credit to those guys for helping me progress along this journey.”
Through his early development, Quarterback Patrick Mahomes had some high praise for the rookie tight end back in OTAs.
“Noah has been really good,” Mahomes said during OTAs. “I think he has a veteran-type skill set where he knows how to get himself open even if it’s not exactly what the play is designed to do. He knows how to get his eyes back and how to get on the quarterback’s timing.”
Gray’s response to the kind words from his new quarterback were humble, and something you don’t hear from a rookie too often.
“It’s a blessing that he thinks that of me, but I also understand that I need to come out here and keep grinding, keep hitting the playbook and keep practicing hard,” Gray said. “From a mentality standpoint, it just means that I need to keep doing the things that I know that I can do. It’s great that a teammate thinks that of me, but to be able to come out here and be the best teammate that I can be, that’s what means the most to me.”
