The Kansas City Chiefs had several players step up on Friday and make a great impression against the Arizona Cardinals. Steve Maneri was one of such guy. The interesting part is that the former offensive tackle turned tight end is hardly the guy that anyone expected to step up, but he did just that, catching 3 passes for 69 yards.
His team leading total was enough to raise a brow as the team is definitely in search of that third tight end after Tony Moeaki and Kevin Boss. After losing Martin Rucker for the season, Maneri might be exactly what the team was looking for.
"The fact that he played offensive tackle last year and now he is playing tight end, with that being said, he was a tight end before, so he does have some tight end experience," said head coach Romeo Crennel. "Those are three pretty good catches, I have to admit. I told him he did a nice job of making those catches because there are a lot of people who would have said that there is no way that he could have made those catches."
Crennel said it would be much harder for a standard tackle to make the move, but with Maneri's previous experience at the position, he's handling the shift well.
"I think it's tough when you do it cold turkey, but because he's been a tight end before," said Crennel, "he does have that background with him. What he had to do was lost a little weight, so during the offseason he started doing that, trying to lose weight and trying to get back to his tight end skills that he had."
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