Kansas City Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub already tabbed rookie RB Isiah Pacheco as the guy at kicker returner. On Tuesday, Toub confirmed his prior comments, explaining that Pacheco will be given every possible opportunity to earn the starting job.
“He’s going to be the guy,” Toub told reporters. “We’re going to start him off. Like I said last time, we’re going to give him every chance to be that guy. I just think he’s got all the attributes to be a good kick returner, and he’s gotten better and better out at practice. He’s doing little things better, and he’s catching the ball great. You know now we got to see what happens with live bullets when guys are coming down there to take your head off, it’s a little bit different. We’ll see how he handles it.”
The seventh-round rookie has been impressive during the course of training camp, even working in with the starting offense at times. His ability as a kick returner is still a relative unknown as he didn’t do much of it during the course of his college career at Rutgers.
“I know (Isiah Pacheco) doesn’t have a lot (of experience),” Toub said. “He hasn’t done it in a long time. Same thing goes with Skyy (Moore), we’re going to put him back there on punt returns and he hasn’t gotten a lot (of work) either in college. There are going to be a lot of firsts in this game. It’s going to be fun.”
Ultimately, how Pacheco and Moore perform during the preseason as return specialists will determine their course of action at those positions. While Toub said Pacheco had improved, there is only so much they can ascertain as coaches from non-live practice periods at training camp.
“Really, for us, it’s hard to tell what a guy can do in practice because we don’t do anything live,” Toub said on Aug. 2. “It’s really the games. The Bears game is going to be huge for us and the Washington game is obviously going to be huge for us. We might be making decisions all the way up to the Green Bay game.”
Under the bright lights in Chicago, Pacheco will get a chance to make his case and prove he has what it takes to be the No. 1 kick returner.
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