This is promising!
The Kansas City Chiefs spent their first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft on Xavier Worthy. The hope was that adding him to a wide receiver group that also included Hollywood Brown and Rashee Rice would give Patrick Mahomes the best weapons he's had in several years.
While Worthy got off to a hot start in his NFL debut, he's definitely had his struggles during his rookie campaign. There have been plenty of times where he and Mahomes weren't on the same page or when Worthy made some rookie mistakes.
That being said, it's not hard to see that Worthy is starting to figure things out. Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy said it perfectly when he compared Worthy's trajectory to Rice's a year ago.
Xavier Worthy's recent production drawing comparisons to Rashee Rice
Rice was a second-round pick by the Chiefs in 2023 and, similar to Worthy this year, got off to a slow start before finding his footing and becoming a reliable target for Mahomes. Fans really saw Rice lock in during the playoffs, as he tallied 26 catches for 262 yards and one touchdown and helped the offense mightily during that time.
Rice got off to a nice start in Year 2 but unfortunately he was injured in Week 4, which cost him the rest of his sophomore season. In his three full games, Rice had 24 receptions for 288 yards and two scores and had two games where he went over the 100+ yard receiving mark. It was a massive disappointment when Rice went down because of the chemistry that he and Mahomes had developed but the team traded for DeAndre Hopkins and now Hollywood Brown is back in action as well.
If Worthy can click into place around this time as Rice did a year ago, Mahomes will have the best group of wide receivers he's had during his career (yes, even when Tyreek Hill was still in Kansas City) and the offense wil be getting red-hot at the perfect time.
