The Kansas City Chiefs invited five tryout players to last weekend's rookie minicamp to show what they could do, and in the case of wide receiver Daurice Fountain and defensive back Manny Patterson, it appears the coaching staff liked what they saw.
Fountain and Patterson each signed with Kansas City on Monday, adding some depth on both sides of the football.
In the case of Fountain, his signing adds a big target (6-foot-2, 210 pounds) to the Chiefs' wide receiver corps. A fifth-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts out of Northern Iowa back in 2018, Fountain displayed unique explosiveness during the pre-draft process by recording a 42-inch vertical jump and a 134-inch broad jump at his Pro Day. In fact, while Fountain wasn't invited to the NFL Scouting Combine, those two scores would have led all receivers at the annual testing event.
Fountain went on to appear in one game as a rookie prior to suffering a season-ending ankle injury before the 2019 campaign began. He played in five games in 2020 - hauling in two grabs for 23 yards – while bouncing between the Colts' active roster and practice squad.
Patterson, meanwhile, was a star at the University of Maine before suffering an ACL tear during his senior year. Prior to the injury, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound Patterson had tallied 54 pass-breakups, three interceptions and 113 total tackles across 44 games for the Black Bears.
A three-time all-conference selection, Patterson went undrafted in 2020 but still caught the attention of the NFL, earning a spot on both the Washington and Houston practice squads over the course of last season.
Now, after impressing over the weekend, Fountain and Patterson each have a fresh start in Kansas City.
