The Chiefs have won back-to-back Super Bowls after trading Tyreek Hill during the 2022 offseason. But they have added a clear speed element back to their offense for 2024.
First, the club signed receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to a one-year deal in free agency. Then Kansas City traded up to select wideout Xavier Worthy at No. 28 overall last Thursday after he set a scouting combine record with a 4.21 40-yard dash.
While Worthy’s speed invites comparisons to Hill, head coach Andy Reid brought up another one of his former speedy receivers when asked about the incoming rookie.
"[Hill and Worthy are] different, and he’ll put his own mark on things once he gets a feel for it,” Reid said in his Thursday press conference. “That wasn’t necessarily the comparison, as much as it was him being a good football player that was a good wide receiver. Now you add in there the return ability. I’ve had some guys like that Tyreek, DeSean Jackson — probably body type a little more like DeSean.”
Jackson was a second-round pick in 2008 and played under Reid with the Eagles through the 2012 season.
When asked what he thought of being drafted by the same coach who chose Jackson, Worthy was all positive.
“It makes me at ease just to see a coach that drafted a guy similar to me as well and him having the success he had in this system under Andy Reid,” Worthy told reporters on Thursday. “It’s just amazing to be able to have a coach that actually gets you as a player and knows you as a player because he’s had that player before.”
Adding Brown and Worthy should improve a receiving corps that clearly struggled throughout the 2023 regular season.
“Both of those two [Brown and Worthy] can run well. I think both love to play the game and are good football players. I think that that will help us,” Reid said. “It doesn’t hurt to have down the field speed. We’ve functioned without the great speed down the field and done well.
“If you have an opportunity to get somebody that you think is a good player, just not a speed guy but a good football player, I think you probably need to take advantage of that.”
