This season, the Kansas City Chiefs have embraced an offensive strategy of stringing together long drives and relying on minimal mistakes to be made. When those mishaps occur, however, things become trickier for Patrick Mahomes and company.
Perfect representations of that, at times, have been rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy. While the first-round pick has 307 yards and four touchdowns on his resume, he's left plenty on the field. Week 11's loss to the Buffalo Bills served as yet another instance of such.
Worthy and Mahomes failed to connect on a deep-ball shot that could've altered Sunday's game. In the days since, head coach Andy Reid assigned blame to both players. Speaking to the media this week, Worthy alluded to the chemistry-building process with Mahomes being a work in progress.
"It's just the communication aspect of it," Worthy said. "I'm a young player, [it's] our first time playing together, so it's just building that chemistry."
Worthy believes that, as his teammates have reiterated to him in recent weeks, being more effective on longer-developing plays just takes time.
"You can't replicate it," Worthy said. "It's just something that you've got to learn over time. It's a hard thing to learn in the moment, but it's all going to be worth it."
Considering Sunday's shared shortcoming, a bad Mahomes throw on a would-be touchdown in Week 10 and a sideline miscue earlier this month, November alone has cost Worthy well over 100 yards and potentially a trio of touchdowns. Adding that to his box score numbers for the year would help him push for the rookie lead in receiving scores and rank higher than eighth in yards among all first-year players. That's, of course, without factoring in any other close calls earlier this season.
This element of narrow misses is something offensive coordinator Matt Nagy pointed out late last week. He and the rest of the Chiefs remain confident that if Worthy's process in practice remains correct, the results during games will naturally come along with that. The first half of Week 11, when Worthy exploded for four receptions, 61 yards and a touchdown, flashed that upside.
Now, the pressure is on Worthy and company to convert on those chances. Entering this Sunday's game against the Carolina Panthers, the speedy young wideout wants to do more of that.
"I feel like I'm starting to really get more comfortable, get a better feel for the game [and] understanding more leverage and more coverage of the game," Worthy said. "I feel like that's just me showing my growth."
