Five Chiefs who could break out in 2025

KC is going to need contributions and growth from players primed to take the next step. Here are five who have a strong opportunity to make a major impact this season.

Since 2018, when Patrick Mahomes took over, the Kansas City Chiefs have been run by superstars. Tyreek Hill was a staple for a long time, but Travis Kelce and Chris Jones have been mainstays over the last seven seasons.

Their production, along with Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo being the brains behind it, is what has propelled the franchise to new heights, but there have been plenty of ancillary pieces over the years. Guys like Mitchell Schwartz, Tyrann Mathieu, L’Jarius Sneed and others are who filled the gaps, raising the floor of the team.

Currently, the Chiefs have several borderline stars, including Trent McDuffie, Creed Humphrey, and Trey Smith. The floor and ceiling of this team are still high, as evidenced by three straight Super Bowl appearances. The only real losses to the roster this offseason were Justin Reid and Joe Thuney.

Rahsee Rice, George Karlaftis, Nick Bolton and some others are high-quality players in their own right, but if the Chiefs want to get back to the mountain top this season, they are going to need contributions and growth from players who are ripe to take the next step.

There are plenty of guys on the roster who have untapped potential. It would be great if Felix Anudike-Uzomah lived up to the first-round hype, and to a lesser extent, the same can be said for Hollywood Brown. Newly acquired players like Kristian Fulton, tenured veterans like Noah Gray, or Jaylon Moore becoming staples would go a long way.

Josh Simmons, or any 2025 rookie having a stellar season, would do wonders, but here are five who have a prime opportunity to take the big leap.

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Safety Jaden Hicks

Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit. When general manager Brett Veach drafted Jaden Hicks in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft, it was seen largely as a tremendous value pick by the draft community. Many had Hicks as the second-ranked safety on their big board, with Dane Brugler’s “The Beast” ranking him as the number one safety and 39th overall.

After gaining more and more playing time toward the end of last season, he enters year two with big shoes to fill. Hicks is expected to take on Justin Reid’s role, and you know the Chiefs must feel good about him considering they have carried Mathieu and Ried over the past six seasons as leaders of the defense.

In his rookie season Hicks ranked 35th out of 171 safeties in overall PFF grade. He flashed a bit of Mathieu’s game-breaking ability, hauling in three interceptions in just 209 coverage snaps. Reid tallied 602 coverage snaps last season, and 974 overall, so Hicks is about to get well acquainted with what it takes to be an NFL regular.

Time will tell if Hicks is up for the challenge, but he has as good of an opportunity as anybody on the team to have a breakout season.

Running back Elijah Mitchell

This one may be a long shot as it has been quite some time since Elijah Mitchell has been a difference-making NFL running back. As a rookie in 2021, he racked up over 1,000 all-purpose yards in just 11 games. He has never played a full season, suiting up for five in 2022, 11 in 2023 and zero in 2024 due to hamstring issues.

If this story sounds familiar, it is because Jerrick McKinnon had the same one when he came over to Kansas City from San Francisco. They are different style players, but sometimes a change of scenery has a way of telling a different story. It all starts with getting Mitchell through training camp as healthy as he currently is, but given the lack of juice the Chiefs have at the running back position, Mitchell will have an opportunity to gain traction.

In his first two seasons in the league, he averaged nearly five yards per carry. He is still 27 years old with only 327 carries on his body. He also provides something that the backfield has been missing the past few years, so long as he has not lost a step, and that is breakaway speed.

Many of these same reasons could lead to Brashard Smith also being a breakout candidate, but if Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt are pounding away, Mitchell or Smith’s fresh legs will have an opportunity to add some real juice to the run game.

Defensive end Charles Omenihu

This one may seem odd, given Charles Omenihu is entering year seven in the league, but the veteran pass rusher will have an opportunity that he has not yet had in Kansas City. He is currently slated to play a full season with a clean bill of health.

Coming off a torn ACL in the 2023 season AFC Championship Game, Omenihu was limited to just six games played at the tail end of the 2024 campaign. This was on the heels of suiting up for 11 games on the end stretch of the 2023 season due to a six-game suspension.

When Omenihu returned in 2024, he was not the same, either. He wound up with one sack down that stretch and had just a seven percent pressure rate. That was the lowest rate of his entire career with the Houston Texans, San Francisco 49ers and the Chiefs.

He has always been a fairly disruptive pass rusher, posing double-digit pressure rate percentages since his second year in the league, but in his first season with the Chiefs, he brought the quarterback to the ground seven times in 11 games and boasted an 11 percent pressure rate. He was built in a Spagnuolo lab and he could be primed to be his most disruptive edge rusher in the 2025 season as he enters another contract season, this time fully healthy.

Wide receiver Xavier Worthy

A big “what if” this season is what Xavier Worhty is set to become entering his second year in the league. Kansas City infamously traded up with the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft, with many calling him Andy Reid’s new DeSean Jackson.

Year one did not turn out quite like that, with Worthy struggling a bit hauling in the deep ball, especially along the boundary. That is not to say he did not have a productive rookie season; it just was not what people thought it might look like.

The speedster finished with nine total touchdowns and 638 receiving yards on 59 catches. The reason for optimism entering year two is that last season, as a rookie, he was forced to be the team's number one wide receiver due to injuries to Rice and Brown. His time to learn on the job was sped up and he should know how to handle himself after a full offseason as an NFL wideout. With Rice and Brown back in the fold, things should open up for Worthy.

Outside of that, albeit in garbage time, he took the top off the Eagles in the Super Bowl for two deep touchdowns. He hauled in all eight of his targets and finished with 157 receiving yards. If Mahomes and Worthy continue to develop that connection, Worthy may become the piece of the offense that unlocks it all, for himself and for Kelce and Rice underneath. Worthy is the x-factor that could take this offense from being top 15 to top five again.

Cornerback Jaylen Watson

Like Worthy can unlock the offense, the same could be said for Jaylen Watson and the defense. It was only six games and 341 snaps, but what Watson showed before he broke his leg in week six was that of a cornerback-one. He wound up clawing his way back for the playoffs, but if he can pick up where he left off at the beginning of last season, he will earn himself a Charvarius Ward or Sneed type of pay day.

Even by the end of the season, PFF still had him ranked as the 29th-best cornerback in the league. It was sort of hard to believe at the time, given no one in Chiefs Kingdom knew who the CB-two was going to be entering the season, but the thing is, he was passing the eye test, too.

Throughout those first five full games that Watson played in, the Chiefs' defense ranked near the top of the league. What Watson becoming Sneed-eque did was it allowed Spagnuolo to deploy McDuffie however he saw fit. Whether that was the outside or the inside, they could put McDuffie on the opposing wide receiver-one.

That is even more feasible this season, with Fulton now in the fold. Fulton had a breakout season with the Los Angeles Chargers last season before signing a sizable two-year deal with Kansas City this offseason. If Watson and Fulton play up to the standard they set for themselves last season, the Chiefs can use McDuffie as the ultimate chess piece, which could produce a top-five defense.