Xavier Worthy's 2026 Bounce-Back Could Define the Chiefs' Offensive Ceiling
After a lost 2025 season, the third-year receiver is drawing rave reviews from the coaching staff this offseason, and Kansas City needs him to deliver.
Stock is low on third-year wide receiver Xavier Worthy. It is a far cry from the hype he entered the league with, having just set the NFL Combine record with a 4.21 40-yard dash, and from the 981, 760, and 1,014-yard seasons he put together in his three years at Texas.
Those numbers, along with 26 touchdowns for the Longhorns, enticed the Chiefs enough to trade up and select him with the 28th pick of the 2024 NFL Draft.
His rookie season showed promise. The 5-foot-11, 165-pounder racked up 59 catches, 638 yards, and six receiving touchdowns, along with three more on the ground. The hype heading into year two only grew after he tallied 287 yards over a three-game playoff stretch, including two touchdowns in Super Bowl LIX.
Then 2025 happened.
Worthy did not shy away from what the offseason has looked like on his end.
“I had that surgery in January, so really, it was just building on, getting stronger and getting that back in the flow,” Worthy said to reporters. “I feel like that might have been the best thing for me. Learning how to be a pro and learning how to approach, obviously, the mental aspect and getting your body prepared for certain things, so I feel like I kind of hit that hard this offseason.”
The fate of his 2025 season was decided just three plays in. A shallow crosser from tight end Travis Kelce de-cleated him, ending his night in the season opener and keeping him out until Week 4.
He returned with a vengeance, hauling in five of eight targets for 83 yards in a blowout win over the Baltimore Ravens.
Unfortunately, that wound up being his season high. The shoulder was clearly an issue throughout, given the January surgery, and an ankle issue also had him on the injury report for much of the year.
The narratives that followed have not been kind. Worthy has been labeled a slight-framed speedster with little more than gadget value and limited tracking ability. This label has been applied to many small and fast receivers during the Andy Reid era.
He did have some issues tracking the sideline as a rookie, but that was not the scouting report on him coming out of college. Draft pundits viewed him as a nuanced route runner in Steve Sarkisian’s pro-style offense at Texas, and one who could track a deep ball. He was never going to be dominant against press-man coverage, but he was savvy enough to get by in that area; that was the narrative painted in 2024.
What he showed in 2025 was not the production you expect from a first-round wide receiver. That much is fair.
That said, the 2025 season was a catastrophe on multiple fronts, both from his injury perspective and the team’s, and there is room for grace with a player who is still just 23 years old.
The more telling sign right now is what is being said about him inside the building, and a significant part of that story is the man now coaching him.
Chad O’Shea is an underrated offseason addition. He has served as both an offensive coordinator and passing-game coordinator at various points in his career, and he spent years coaching wide receivers for the New England Patriots throughout the thick of their dynasty run.
He worked with and got the best out of some of the greats, including Julian Edelman, Wes Welker, and Randy Moss. In recent years, he coaxed some of the best seasons of their careers out of Amari Cooper and Jerry Jeudy despite mediocre quarterback play.
His arrival feels significant for a wide receiver room that backslid under former position coach Connor Embree, and his early read on Worthy has been as encouraging as anything that has come out of the offseason.
“The first thing is what you don’t see, and that’s off the field,” O’Shea said to reporters. “He is tremendous in the classroom. His preparation so far has been outstanding. He’s very coachable. He’s not an error-repeater, so we correct mistakes, and he moves on very quickly.
… I’ve been very impressed with his ball skills. He catches the ball very well at all three levels, short, intermediate, and obviously the deep passes. His preparation and who he is and what he brings to the table there is outstanding, and then probably his ball skills just jump out at me. I obviously know about the speed, but I was excited at how well he’s caught the ball.”
Head coach Andy Reid echoed those sentiments after minicamp wrapped up, noting a physical difference as well.
“Xavier’s really had a nice camp,” Reid said to reporters. “Strong, he looks stronger, and that’s a part that you like. I mean, you really see it. We put him in a lot of the primary positions, and I thought he did a nice job with all of it.”
Worthy also spoke to the schematic work he has put in, which addresses one of the more persistent knocks on his game: his awareness on the field. When you are not healthy for parts of the offseason, it helps him focus on more than just the physical side of the game.
“Learning the area of the zones, where I can sit, obviously, learning coverages and what Pat (Mahomes) likes,” Worthy said to reporters. “Like Trav (Travis Kelce) talks about all the time, getting friendly in zone and knowing when to run out in man, so just learning those little aspects of the game.”
That development matters, because the wide receiver room around him is not deep enough for Worthy to be anything less than a legitimate weapon. Number one receiver Rashee Rice has had a well-documented summer. The 26-year-old just finished a 30-day jail sentence for violating probation and had a knee cleanup surgery of his own.
Beyond those two, Tyquan Thornton has value but has functioned as a premium deep threat and little else. That could change. The Chiefs believed in him enough to offer a two-year contract this offseason. After that, the depth chart gets thin in a hurry.
Fourth-round pick Jalen Royals was supposed to emerge as a yards-after-catch weapon in 2025, a calling card that mirrors Rice’s game. Instead, he finished the season with two catches for four yards on 86 snaps, despite Rice suiting up for only eight games. And neither of those two targets came from Patrick Mahomes.
Fifth-round rookie Cyrus Allen is an interesting addition and profiles as a legitimate man-beater in a receiver room that largely thrives against zone, but he is a fifth-round rookie with a steep learning curve. Worthy himself noted what he sees from Allen early on.
“Cyrus, he’s an electric route runner,” Worthy said to reporters. “He has explosion, obviously good ball skills, hands, and he’s a smart player. Just does a lot of young things that Coach Reid was getting on me about when I was younger.”
That last line is telling. Worthy has been there. He knows what it takes to get up to speed in this offense, and right now he is the only player on this roster, aside from Rice, with the pedigree to be the receiver Kansas City needs.
The rest of the depth chart, consisting of names like Nikko Remigio, Xavier Loyd, Jimmy Holiday, and Omari Evans among others, underscores just how important it is that Worthy delivers in year three.
A couple of things can be true here. The 2025 season was a lost year, and the concerns about his ceiling as a number one or number two receiver are not baseless. But no player on this roster, aside from Worthy, has the combination of talent, experience, and opportunity he brings into 2026.
The offseason reports suggest the arrow is pointing up. For the Chiefs’ offense to reach its ceiling, it needs to stay there.