By admin 
Back in 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs’ addition of Texas receiver Xavier Worthy with the 28th overall pick in the NFL Draft seemed like the one sure thing that would take the Chiefs’ offense from great to unstoppable.
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Worthy had just run a scouting combine record 4.21-second 40-yard dash at the 2024 event, and when you combined that with his excellent tape in Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s pro-ready offense, Worthy appeared to present the kind of team/player fit that makes the rest of the NFL stand up and take notice.
Xavier Worthy, WR, Texas
PLUSES
— Record-breaking speed shows up on the field; Worthy can house a handoff or a quick screen, and he’s very adept at gaining separation in a straight line downfield.
— Has a nice sense of foot feints to get off press at the line of scrimmage… pic.twitter.com/xXMPdgSHI6
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) April 9, 2024
In Worthy’s rookie season, it worked pretty well. He caught 59 passes on 98 targets for 538 yards and six touchdowns in the regular season, and booted things up to a new level with 19 catches on 21 targets for 287 yards and three touchdowns in Kansas City’s three playoff games. This included Super Bowl LIX, when Worthy caught eight passes on eight targets for 157 yards and two touchdowns. He was one of the team’s few highlight providers in the Chiefs’ 40-22 loss.
Mahomes’ three explosive completions in the Super Bowl. All came in the second half, all were to Xavier Worthy, and two were for touchdowns. The Eagles were up 34-0 when it all started, but they weren’t playing full-on prevent. Maybe the Chiefs can build on this in 2025. pic.twitter.com/3KUVMFF2hL
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) June 14, 2025
Things started to fall apart in 2025, mostly due to Worthy’s injuries. He suffered a torn labrum in the Chiefs’ Week 1 loss to the Los Angeles Chargerswhen he bumped into teammate and noted Taylor Swift fan Travis Kelce. Worthy played through it as best as he could, but you could see the negative effects in the metrics and on the field. Worthy caught 42 passes on 73 targets last season for 532 yards and one touchdown in 2025, and as there was no postseason for the 6-11 Chiefs, that was the slammed door on a disappointing second season for the 6-foot-0, 165-pound receiver.
Worthy had offseason surgery on the shoulder in January, and the hope is that he’ll come back not only with optimal explosiveness, but perhaps a bit bulkier.
“Xavier really had a nice camp,” head coach Andy Reid said over the summer. “Stronger – that’s the part that you like. You really see it. We put him in a lot of the primary positions, and I thought he did a nice job with all of it.”
One thing the Chiefs will need from Worthy, especially as they banked so much into his athletic profile, is for the third-year man to take better advantage of deep passes thrown in his general direction. In 2024, Worthy caught seven of 21 passes of 20 or more air yards for 270 yards and four touchdowns; most of that came in the aforementioned Super Bowl. In 2025, Worthy’s deep numbers dropped to four deep catches on 16 targets for 137 yards and no touchdowns. Watching Worthy allow cornerbacks to catch up to him in coverage, given his straight-line speed, proved the worth of nuances at the position that he’s still learning.
A few of Xavier Worthy’s deep targets in 2025 (four catches on 16 targets):
The nuances matter. pic.twitter.com/26fax0IutO
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— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 13, 2026
This was further illustrated by the fact that of his 18 contested targets in 2025, Worthy caught just two. Especially for a player his size, Worthy needs to command the details when it comes to evading harder coverages.
A few of Xavier Worthy’s contested targets in 2025 (two catches on 18 targets):
The nuances matter. pic.twitter.com/f9qYDdknZo
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 13, 2026
It’s not that Worthy is on the verge of becoming another speed receiver with little else on the ball outside of straight-line acceleration – he’s not John Ross, Breshad Perriman, or Dri Archer. At least, not yet. But if he is going to live up to what he did at his combine, and the NFL’s reaction to it, he must gain access to the attributes that presage success at the receiver position(s) that have nothing to do with the ability to burn a defender off the line.
Because the thing about NFL defenders is that they generally have ways to counter your one alpha skill – especially if that one alpha skill is all you bring to the field.
“I think you saw at the end of last year, he’s not just this fast receiver that can run down the field,” Patrick Mahomes said of Worthy last September, when he returned to the field following a two-game layoff after that shoulder injury. “He’s gained weight and he’s kept his speed, and he showed that he can be a guy that can do everything. I think last year was so pivotal of having him be in a bigger role – obviously with injuries and stuff like that, he had the injury at the beginning of the year, but this was the role that we expected him to be in, and he showcased it today.”
“Today” was Week 4 against the Baltimore Ravens, when Worthy caught five passes on eight targets for 85 yards in a 37-20 Chiefs win.
The 2026 Chiefs receiver rotation isn’t exactly teeming with sure things. Rashee Rice recently underwent arthroscopic knee surgery, and he had to recover from it in a Dallas County jail after a probation violation. Beyond that, there are a lot of borderline roster guys who may be forced into roles above their stations. If that’s true of Tyquan Thornton, Jalen Royals, Cyrus Allen, Jimmy Holiday, Andrew Armstrong, and Jeff Caldwell, it would behoove Worthy to upgrade to a new and more comprehensive skill set.
Without one major receiver, the 2026 Chiefs passing game could look distressingly like the 2025 Chiefs passing game, which would not be good. That’s even if Mahomes is fully healthy, and last season’s torn ACL and LCL are firmly in the rear view.
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This story was originally published July 14, 2026 at 4:55 AM.