A pair of former college teammates have been reunited on the Kansas City Chiefs offense this season.
Chiefs free agent acquisition DeAndre Washington played with QB Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech during the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The two developed quite a chemistry, accounting for exactly 12,300 yards of total offense over the course of two seasons in Lubbock, Texas. Now, reunited in Kansas City, Washington had a chance to reflect on the full-circle moment.
“It’s just crazy how life sometimes comes full circle,” Washington said. “Kind of seeing him in his beginning stages at [Texas Tech] and then to see him kind of elevate to the stage he’s at now, man. It’s been a pleasure to see it. [I’m] definitely excited to be back playing with him.”
Washington claims he always knew that Mahomes would become the player that he is today. He’s still in awe of the things that he’s capable of doing on the practice field.
“100 percent, man,” Washington said. “The crazy thing is… his practice film is scarier than his game film when he’s kind of just winging it and doing what he wants to do. On the practice field, he’s got some pretty exciting plays. Some guys you play with just kind of have the it-factor and he’s one of those guys. He’s a guy that’s just able to make plays that most guys can’t make and he did that in high school, he did that in college and he’s still doing it now.”
Back in college, during the 2015 season, Washington and Mahomes formed a dynamic duo for Texas Tech. Washington seems to believe that they fed off each other’s energy and it helped keep defenses off-balance, unable to defend both the running game and the passing game.
“Just being able to feed off of each other’s energy,” Washington said. “When you have a quarterback like that, guys can’t really key in on the run game. So that opened up opportunities for me. Having a successful run game opened up opportunities for our passing game, being able to go over the top of guys. I think it was just kind of feeding off of each other’s energy. We kind of got hot early and momentum just rolled through the season offensively. I wish we could have won a few more games, of course. But on offense, we were hot for sure.”
There’s still a little chemistry between Washington and Mahomes from their college days, but they also got together during the offseason for some private workouts in order to get a feel for working together again.
“We were able to get a few workouts in this offseason to kind of kickstart it a little bit,” Washington said. “I think over these next few weeks especially, once we start to amp things up a little bit, we’ll maybe get more acclimated. It’s just been good to be back out there with him and be back out there with these guys. New teammates, new environment, new energy — it’s an exciting time right now. The guys are coming off a Super Bowl win. So guys are definitely very excited, very confident, which I love. I was looking to come in and compete, to show what I can do and make my mark on this offense.”
As Washington looks to compete and earn an opportunity in Kansas City, he’ll also look to reforge the connection with Mahomes that saw great success at Texas Tech.
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