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The Justyn Ross hype train reached an all-time high speed on Wednesday evening, when the Kansas City Chiefs official Twitter account sent out a video of a one-handed catch from Wednesday afternoon’s organized team activities (OTAs) workout.
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) May 25, 2022
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes quickly noticed, as did tight end Travis Kelce.
I felt like I was the only one that got hype when I saw it live!! WE NEED MORE JUICE!! @_jross8 https://t.co/1yq1I4tRpH
— Travis Kelce (@tkelce) May 25, 2022
At the time of this writing (Friday morning), the video has 1.3 million views, 10,000 likes and 1,700 retweets — and counting. In a lighthearted moment during his press conference on Thursday, Kelce explained what he meant.
“More juice, man,” said Kelce, his eyes now lit up. “He was out there, you could tell he had been through a few routes in a row, and then he runs this double-move deep route, and he just catches it with ease and [he’s] just gasping for air.
“I’m like, ‘Man, you make a catch like that, you’ve got to let everybody know what you just did!’ You can’t just make a casual catch — I’m like, ‘Damn, that was kind of deflating to see you just kind of run back to the huddle like that, man. I need you to fuel me with life. Get hyped!’
If Kelce isn’t hyped, the Chiefs’ fan base certainly is. Before Kelce took the podium, Mahomes had his turn, explaining what he has seen in Ross — while (in a leadership fashion), lightening the load on the suddenly-smoldering expectations.
“You still see the talent,” said Mahomes of the former undrafted free agent. “I think that’s the first thing. I know people saw the catch on Twitter, but the way he catches the football out of the air — he snatches it. There’s no drops, anything like that.
“Now it’s about him learning the NFL offense. That’s how it is for every rookie when they come in is, you don’t see that top talent that they can be until they learn that they can just play fast. And I think you’ve seen that. You’ve seen the splashes of how talented he can be, and then you’ve seen times where he’s just barely off of what we wanted. And he learns from that. He doesn’t make that same mistake.
“The more and more reps that he gets, I can only imagine how good he’s going to be because of the talent he possesses.”
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