Marquise Brown Agrees to Deal With Chiefs: Fantasy Football Impact & Takeaways (2024)

Patrick Mahomes is getting another weapon, and it’s a fast one. Former Cardinals WR Marquise Brown has agreed to a one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs worth up to $11M, according to multiple reports.

Let’s examine the immediate implications and fantasy impact of Brown agreeing to terms with the Chiefs.

Marquise Brown Signs With Kansas City Chiefs

Hooray for Hollywood. The Chiefs are signing WR Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to a one-year deal worth up to $11 million, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The addition of Brown bolsters a Chiefs WR corps that was undermanned in 2023. Rashee Rice was a rookie revelation for Kansas City, but Rice is a short-area, catch-and run receiver whose average depth of target last season was 4.8 yards. The speedy Brown, who had an average depth of target of 11.9 yards last season, gives Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes a badly needed vertical threat.

The 26-year-old Brown is a five-year veteran who spent the first three years of his career in Baltimore before joining the Cardinals for the 2022 season.

Slightly built at 5-9 and 180-pounds, Brown missed three games last year with a heel injury and finished the season with 51 catches for 574 yards and four touchdowns. In 2022, Brown missed five games with a fractured foot but still had 67 catches for 709 yards and three TDs. Brown’s best season came with the Ravens in 2021, when he had 91 catches for 1,008 yards and six touchdowns.

The Chiefs are an organization that values speed at wide receiver, but Kansas City didn’t get a very satisfying return on investment from Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who spent two disappointing seasons in Kansas City and is now a free agent. Nor have the Chiefs gotten much of anything from the speedy but mistake-prone Kadarius Toney.

Enter Brown, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.27 seconds at Oklahoma’s pro day in 2019. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is a mad scientist who’ll spend the next six months scheming up ways to leverage Brown’s stopwatch-melting speed.

Patrick Mahomes gets another target ? pic.twitter.com/7NqVuqv3zZ

— FantasyPros (@FantasyPros) March 15, 2024

Brown hasn’t been a particularly efficient receiver over his career, with averages of 11.6 yards per catch, 6.9 yards per target and 1,59 yards per route run. With Mahomes as his quarterback and Reid calling the plays, Brown should be able to equal or surpass the efficiency of his 2019 rookie season, when he averaged 12.7 yards per catch, 8.2 yards per target and 1.83 yards per route run.

Landing with the Chiefs puts Brown in position to be an impactful fantasy performer in 2024. He isn’t likely to earn a massive target share with Rice and TE Travis Kelce around, but Brown is going to produce more than his fair share of splash plays if he stays healthy all season. It’s not hard to imagine him producing a 75-1,000-8 type of stat line with his new team. It seems reasonable to value Brown as a midrange WR3 in redraft leagues. I have him ranked WR32 now that he’s with the Chiefs.

Brown’s arrival in Kansas City bodes well for Mahomes, who finished QB8 in fantasy scoring last year and averaged a career low 7.0 yards per pass attempt. Improved weaponry at the WR position could help get Mahomes back to his usual status as a top-three fantasy quarterback.

The addition of Brown probably won’t cut into the target totals of Kelce or Rice, and Brown could very well help those two by providing a vertical threat that opposing defenses are forced to honor, creating more room for Kelce and Rice to operate underneath.