Patrick Mahomes on Xavier Worthy's Sideline Miscue and Expectations Going Forward

Patrick Mahomes had a positive view of Xavier Worthy's toe-tap mishap and discussed what's reasonable to expect from the rookie for the rest of the season.

Oct 27, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy (1) in the second half against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy has had an up-and-down start to his first season of NFL action. While Worthy has accounted for five total touchdowns for the Kansas City Chiefs, tied with Kareem Hunt for the most on the team, his role in KC's passing game still hasn't fully come into focus.

On Monday night, Worthy was open deep downfield on the first drive of the game and hauled in a pass from quarterback Patrick Mahomes as he stepped out of bounds, turning a would-be touchdown into a long incompletion.

During his Wednesday press conference, Mahomes was asked about what kind of progress he's seen from Worthy throughout his rookie year and his view of the missed connection in the first drive. Mahomes started by crediting Worthy for reading the defense and getting open before stepping on the sideline.

"He does a lot of great things," Mahomes said. "On that play, he had more of an in-cut type route, they went to a coverage that they hadn't played a lot with kind of a 2-invert with the safety kind of playing in the middle there, and so I looked down the middle of the field because that's kind of my guy I look to, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Xavier down the sideline making that adjustment. I tried to get him the ball as quickly as possible. Obviously, you're half an inch from scoring a touchdown or whatever it is, maybe even less than that. He'll learn from that, but I thought he did a great job on that play in general of recognizing the coverage and getting to the right spot. And regardless of stats and whatever it is, the threat of him over the top is getting a lot of other guys open. That gets lost in the swing of things, that you don't see the big catches downfield, but I promise you the defenses are respecting his speed, and that's helping getting guys like DeAndre [Hopkins] and Trav [Travis Kelce] open in that medium range."

Could Worthy be in line for a similar mid-season uptick as Rashee Rice enjoyed in his rookie campaign? Last season, Rice caught eight passes for 107 yards in his 11th game as a Chief, setting season-highs in both categories. From that point forward, Rice was clearly KC's No. 1 wide receiver.

"Rashee's season was special last year, and we needed him to step up and have that role in the offense," Mahomes said. "Obviously, we've gotten guys in here that I think take off that pressure of having one guy make all those big plays, but I think you'll continue to see big games from him. You've seen it in certain moments throughout the season, the big plays, you've seen certain plays where he's caught the ball and scored touchdowns, and so I think his role will get bigger and bigger within the offense, but I think we're probably more well-rounded as an offense in general, so maybe not as big of the numbers and stats that Rashee had last year."

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