KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A year ago, Xavier Worthy’s introduction to the NFL came while wearing shorts and a jersey top, a spectator’s fit as he stood next to a coach watching the Chiefs’ offense begin preparation for the season.
Mental reps, he called those.
A year earlier, Rashee Rice popped out of a summer camp huddle and hurried to the wrong side of the line, prompting his head coach to stop the play and start it anew. A few snaps later, he made the mistake again.
There’s a commonality in the subject of those two brief stories: The wide receivers were rookies, first time on an NFL practice field after the draft.
Oh, and one more similarity: They were the go-to wideouts on those Chiefs teams.
Eventually.
The No. 1 roles didn’t come immediately because, well, they couldn’t come immediately. Rice and Worthy had just arrived in Kansas City and didn’t know the playbook, didn’t entirely know what to expect in the NFL and didn’t even really know the quarterback.
Which offers a direct contrast this offseason.
Last month, with the Chiefs in a similar stage of summer work, Patrick Mahomes called a play during mandatory minicamp, and it prompted a verbal “fight†among their wide receivers. That was Hollywood Brown’s tongue-in-cheek word, not mine.
The receivers knew the play, knew every route assignment within it and therefore had a pretty good idea of where Mahomes would look to throw the ball.
Thus, the fight.
“Let me get that one,†Brown said of the exchange in the huddle. “Let me get this one.â€
The top of the Kansas City wide receiver depth chart provides the quarterback with familiarity this year. That sentence hasn’t been true since the Chiefs sent Tyreek Hill to Miami in March 2022.
The familiarity is the difference.
The Chiefs are a couple of weeks shy of packing up for training camp in St. Joseph. For three seasons, that “training†has most accurately defined teaching top-of-the-depth-chart wide receivers the basic components of the offense. A playbook training, if you will.
The Chiefs were educating their wide receivers on snap counts. Some of them had rarely even huddled in college.
This year? It’s an opportunity not to simply pass out the playbook but rather to expand it.
They already have.
“It allows you to jump-start and line up in all these crazy formations,†head coach Andy Reid said. “It’s things that as (last) season went on, we were able to expand a little bit. Then we hit it running here.â€
For three years, we’ve asked Mahomes about the process of better learning his receivers and vice versa. He’s hosted a camp in Texas to accelerate that process.
Shouldn’t the inverse be as relevant? Heck, shouldn’t it be more relevant?
The Chiefs have a chance to layer into an offense that finished just 15th in the NFL in scoring each of the past two seasons. This month’s trip to St. Joseph shouldn’t center on teaching new players old tricks. They can build new tricks.
Consider this:
— In his first 10 games as a rookie in 2023, Rashee Rice averaged 42 receiving yards per game. In his last six games, he averaged 86.3 yards per game. That’s more than double.
— In his first nine games as a rookie in 2024, Xavier Worthy averaged 27.3 receiving yards per game. In his final seven games, he averaged 56 per game. That’s more than double.
It takes time.
It shouldn’t now. The Chiefs will finally open training camp with their best receivers having a foundation.
When was that last true? In the interest of more bullet points:
— In 2024, Worthy and DeAndre Hopkins led Chiefs’ wideouts in targets. Both were in their first year with the team, with Hopkins a midseason acquisition, at that.
— In 2023, Rice led the group in targets. He was a rookie.
— In 2022, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Justin Watson were the top-three targeted receivers. All were free agent acquisitions the previous summer.
This year, the Chiefs return Rice, Worthy and Brown. Two of the three missed significant time with injuries last year, but they didn’t miss the education. They return knowing the offense, the playbook, the assignments and the quarterback. So does Smith-Schuster. Fourth-round pick Jalen Royals does not arrive atop the depth chart.
That might not produce a higher ceiling for the Chiefs’ offense, but it should absolutely give them a higher likelihood of reaching it — and there’s less of an excuse for them not to reach it far earlier in the season.
“I think you saw even at the beginning of last year, before Rashee got hurt, whenever you have a guy that you spent that time with and have that connection with, you can hit the ground running,†Mahomes said.
It’s the very foundation of Mahomes’ most prominent connection. He and tight end Travis Kelce are terrific talents, first and foremost, but their production has been undoubtedly elevated not just by experience but by their experiences together.
We haven’t see Mahomes develop that level of trust with other receivers recently — but we also haven’t seen much of a chance. The roster has lacked longevity at the position.
Rice, Brown and Worthy did not play a single snap together a year ago. If healthy, it might be the most talented group Mahomes has had since Hill left.
But it’s not strictly about the talent.
It’s the familiarity.
At long last, the Chiefs have it.
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