Malcolm Kelly didn’t bother to phone his folks or send out text messages, celebrating his new starting role at receiver. This is not the end of a journey for him.
“I’m not satisfied with that,” Kelly said. “A lot get satisfied being in the starting rotation. If you get in the starting rotation, the next thing is to catch so many balls. After you catch so many it’s to lead this and that. You have to take baby steps. You can never be satisfied.”
But the announcement, made Wednesday, means a lot to Kelly. He beat out fellow second-year Devin Thomas for the job, as well as veteran Antwaan Randle El. The latter, however, has been penciled into the No. 3 slot position for most of the summer. Randle El congratulated Kelly.
Kelly earned the job in part because of the extra time he put in after practices. He’d stick around with quarterback Jason Campbell and rookie Marko Mitchell and work on routes and catch passes.
It helped him make up the ground he lost coming off knee surgery in February.
“I told myself, behind or ahead I would stay after practice every day and catch balls with Jason,” Kelly said. “I did that and it’s paying off. I’ll stick to that.”
He and Thomas have a good relationship, but rarely talked about the competition. Instead, Kelly said, more often than not they’d discuss getting on the field together.
Meanwhile, Thomas said he was not surprised.
“You can see the way Malcolm works, he’s a hard worker and he’s making plays,” Thomas said. “It’s good for him to be fully healthy and ready to go.
“That’s cool. I know we’ll all get a lot of playing time and I’m ready to make plays.”
Thomas said this would not motivate him to push harder.
“I’ll continue to do what I’m doing,” he said. “I’ll keep working hard to do what I do.”
Follow me on twitter @John_Keim
