Chiefs receiver Junior Hemingway is always in the right place at the right time

Chiefs wide receiver Junior Hemingway couldn’t believe how open he was last Sunday in San Francisco.

Not once, not twice, but three of the four times Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith targeted Hemingway, there wasn’t a 49ers defender close to him.

It appeared the 49ers were more concerned with Dwayne Bowe and A.J. Jenkins on the outside and ignored Hemingway, the Chiefs’ slot receiver. In all, Hemingway caught four passes for a career-best 50 yards.

“When I came off the ball, those guys were just running out of there, so I gave Alex a look, and he put the ball there,” Hemingway said after the 22-17 loss. “I wanted to make sure I was in the right spot at the right time.”

Three of Hemingway’s four receptions came in the first quarter, and the final one came on the opening play of the second period before the 49ers started paying attention to him.

All four receptions produced much-needed first downs.

On the Chiefs’ game-opening touchdown drive, Hemingway converted a third-and-three with a 10-yard gain, followed by a 17-yard reception when he found a vacant spot in the middle of the zone.

Hemingway later converted a third-and-four with a 7-yard reception on a crossing pattern. He also caught a short pass for 3 yards, and with no one around him, he ran another 13 yards after the catch for a 16-yard gain, setting up a Cairo Santos field goal that gave the Chiefs a 10-3 lead.

“We practiced those all week,” Hemingway said of his clutch receptions, “and Alex made the throws.”

Hemingway’s opportunism was no accident.

“Sometimes in games, those things happen,” said wide receivers coach David Culley. “But Junior’s always in the right place at the right time. That’s what he does. That’s the consistency he has, and that’s what makes him a very good, solid player on third down.

“You know he’s going to be where he should be. Last week, they must not have thought he was in the game, because when he came open three times, there he was, by himself.”

Hemingway has been an overlooked player since being selected by the Chiefs in the seventh round of the 2012 draft.

Known as “Big Play Hemingway” at Michigan, he averaged 20.6 yards a reception as a senior and was voted the Sugar Bowl MVP when he caught touchdown passes of 45 and 18 yards in a win over Virginia Tech. But his lack of high-end speed and questions about his durability led to his falling to the 238th overall pick in the draft.

Hemingway, a 6-1, 225-pounder, spent the first 15 weeks of his rookie season on the Chiefs’ practice squad, but his ability to play all three wide receiver spots as well as contribute to special teams kept him around in 2013 when Andy Reid took over as head coach.

Hemingway caught 13 passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns in limited duty last year, with five of those receptions coming in the regular-season finale at San Diego when the Chiefs rested their starters for the playoffs. Hemingway also caught two passes for 30 yards in the wild-card loss at Indianapolis.

“Junior fits us inside with what we want to do with that third guy,” said Culley. “He’s strong, he’s tough, he has a good feel for what we want in there. Even last year, when he did not play a lot on the inside, he was very productive.

“Last year, Dexter (McCluster) was in there most of the time. Now (Hemingway) is in there doing all of that work that he did. He’s getting more comfortable with it. We can do some more things in there because of his size and his strength than we did last year.”

Hemingway is becoming more and more comfortable playing inside as the slot receiver.

“It is a little different,” he said. “Most of the time in the slot you are going to see a little more off-coverage. Outside you are going to see a little more press-man coverage. But I work in and out so that is going to help me out a lot.”

And it sure helped Smith find an open receiver in those crucial third-down situations.

“He’s a guy I have a lot of trust in when he’s in there,” Smith said. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s a bigger-bodied guy. He’s going to be physical, make some tough catches for you and just works hard. He’s always there. He’s always available and knows all the positions, so I’m not surprised by his play.”

This story was originally published October 8, 2014 at 2:07 PM with the headline "Chiefs receiver Junior Hemingway is always in the right place at the right time."