Uh-oh: Patrick Mahomes just added the fastest player in the history of the NFL Combine. The Chiefs traded up to 28th overall and grabbed Texas product Xavier Worthy. Kansas City has rebuilt their WR corps with the additions of Marquise Brown and Worthy this offseason to go along with Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce. Let’s break this down fantasy-wise.
XAVIER WORTHY
Projection: 50.6 catches on 80.3 targets for 718.4 yards and 4.4 TDs
- We have to start here: Worthy set the all-time NFL Combine record with a 4.21 40-yard dash. He’s only 165 pounds, but he can play inside and outside and was hugely productive early in his career. His worst season from a market share perspective actually came in his final season in Austin, as he had to compete with Adonai Mitchell for targets. Worthy’s primary flaw is his size, as we haven’t seen many successful NFL WRs play at his weight. Still, he has game-breaking speed and is an underrated route-runner. He’s a threat to house it any time he touches the rock, and that’s an appealing feature in a fantasy asset.
- Rice may be suspended for the start of the 2024 season after recklessly driving earlier this offseason; that could thrust Worthy into the Week 1 WR2 role for Mahomes. Either way, the former Longhorn is in for a big role as a rookie, and there aren’t many football minds better than Andy Reid at getting players the ball in advantageous spots. We’ve seen Reid design touches for Rice, Mecole Hardman, Kadarius Toney, even Kelce over the past year or two; it will be exciting to see what he can do with the fastest player in Combine history.
OTHER CHIEFS WIDE RECEIVERS
- If Worthy has game-changing talent, there’s a non-zero chance he ends the year as the primary WR here. That’s unlikely, but with Kelce’s advanced age and Worthy’s draft capital, it’s exciting to think about. The more realistic outcome is that Rice regains the WR1 after serving a likely suspension, building off a rookie campaign in which he was consistently getting double-digit targets per game over the second half of the season. It’s worth noting that production came with Marquez Valdes-Scantling at WR2; Hollywood and Worthy are far superior target competition, and Rice didn’t show much ability to operate deep. There are legit questions about his profile, but his proven target-earning ability combined with Mahomes is hard to pass up.
- Brown should be the WR2 in training camp and perhaps the WR1 in Week 1 if Rice gets suspended. We’ve seen the Chiefs slow-roll rookie WRs before (Skyy Moore barely played, Rice played sparingly early despite clearly being their best receiver), so Brown may not face too much competition from Worthy off the bat, but the rookie could become a bigger threat come the end of the year. Still, Brown doesn’t need that much volume to post big numbers when his targets come from the arm of Pat Mahomes.
- Kelce saw decreased targets in 2023 despite such awful target competition, and the Chiefs have bigger goals than getting their Hall of Fame tight end the best regular-season numbers possible. With a legitimately good WR group in place, Kansas City could ease off Kelce even more in 2024. That will preserve him for the real-life playoffs, but it’s not great for his fantasy outlook. Still, Kelce will be out there on high-leverage snaps (i.e. red zone) and should challenge for the team lead in targets.
