Kansas City Chiefs: Is Demetrius Harris starting to figure it out

The Kansas City Chiefs could really use a legitimate backup tight end behind Travis Kelce. They’ve been searching for awhile for that guy and perhaps they’ve finally found him in Demetrius Harris, who has had a nice preseason.

It might be hard to believe, but Kansas City Chiefs tight end Demetrius Harris is heading into his FIFTH year for the organization. He joined the Chiefs after playing basketball in college and has been a project during his four previous years in the league.

Harris started to make progress last year, hauling in 17 catches for 123 yards and a touchdown. He also had that crucial two-point conversion in the Sunday Night Football game against the Broncos and was the recipient of Dontari Poe‘s touchdown pass on Christmas night (also against the Broncos).

Before that, Harris had only totaled ten catches for 94 yards and a touchdown. He was kind of just “there” on the roster. Harris was the most frustrating to watch last year when he was known as the designated dropper on the Chiefs offense.

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Blair Kerkhoff of The Kansas City Star noted that Harris had six dropped passes a season ago off of 31 targets, which just goes to show the amount of troubles he had holding onto the football. Travis Kelce also had six drops, but he was targeted way more (117 times to be exact), so it was a little more forgivable.

While watching Demetrius Harris over the past few seasons has been a bit disappointing, he’s having a nice preseason so far. Of course, it’s only been two games, but Harris has not only held onto receptions, but he could be becoming a true red zone target for Alex Smith.

On Saturday night, Harris caught three total passes with two of them occurring in the end zone for touchdowns. Harris caught a touchdown from Smith and another one from Patrick Mahomes and has already shown improvement in just two games.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how I wanted Gavin Escobar to become the backup tight end for Kansas City. While that would still be great, Harris transforming into Kelce’s righthand man would be excellent too. He can be the Martellus Bennett to Kelce’s Rob Gronkowski.

Okay, that might be taking Harris’ few preseason games a bit far, but hey, we can dream, right? If Demetrius Harris keeps up his impressive play, then Chiefs Kingdom could be in for a real treat this year at the tight end position.

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