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Adam Teicher, ESPN Staff Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As this year’s NFL draft approached, general manager Brett Veach met with quarterback Patrick Mahomes to discuss some of the players the Kansas City Chiefs were considering with their first-round pick.
Veach and the Chiefs didn’t plan to defer on the choice to Mahomes but were certainly interested in his opinions. Mahomes walked into the meeting having studied enough video on wide receivers that Veach called him a “tape-a-holic.”
The two-time NFL MVP had broken down film on Georgia’s Ladd McConkey and Florida State’s Keon Coleman — but he had a different favorite. The one with the slight build from the University of Texas who had recently run the 40-yard dash in 4.21 seconds, a record for the scouting combine.
Mahomes liked the speed of this receiver, Xavier Worthy, and sent Veach a fire emoji after news of Worthy’s 40 at the combine.
But he saw a complete player who could do more than run fast.
“Just route running [and] a guy that played physical, too,” Mahomes said about what he liked about Worthy. “For him to not weigh a ton, he plays hard, he plays through stuff. He goes out there and competes, and then the speed, obviously it opens up the field, but he’s not just a fast receiver.
“He plays hard, plays fast and you want those types of guys on your football team.”
The Chiefs got Mahomes the receiver he wanted. They traded up a few spots late in the first round rather than hope he slipped to them at the 32nd pick. They saw instant results in their season-opening 27-20 win Thursday night against the Baltimore Ravens, with Worthy scoring two touchdowns, including a pivotal fourth-quarter 35-yard score.
“Pat doesn’t just come in and say, ‘Let’s draft a wideout,'” Veach said. “Well, there’s a lot of wideouts. But Pat has a vision like a coach has a vision. He’ll pull out plays from a game like he’s seen it all. He’s done the work. It’s not just TV scouting but actual film work.
“Of the guys we were talking about, Worthy was the guy he really liked. He doesn’t rank guys. He just tells you what he thinks. But you could tell that he was most excited about Worthy.”
THE REVIEWS ON Worthy are very early, but Mahomes, Veach and the Chiefs have reason to be encouraged about their first-round draft pick and the impact he could have. Worthy touched the ball three times in Thursday night’s game, but two of them went for touchdowns, both more than 20 yards.
Even at that, Mahomes said Worthy’s true impact came from the respect the Ravens had to give to his speed. That gave room to work for other receivers, including Rashee Rice, who led the Chiefs with seven catches for 103 yards.
“Having him out there, it just opens up stuff,” Mahomes said. “You saw when he’s out there, they’re playing shell coverages. It’s getting guys like [Travis Kelce] and it’s getting guys like Rashee open underneath and that’s what’s so great about this offense is we’re able to do all of that and that’s when we’re at our best.”
Even without Mahomes’ approval, the Chiefs would have drafted Worthy. They were hurting for help at wide receiver, with last season’s group, apart from rookie Rice, struggling to make big plays and at times even catch the ball. Their wide receivers led the league in dropped passes (44).
They signed one fast free agent wide receiver, Marquise Brown, but that wasn’t enough. They felt they needed to give Mahomes a second addition to help create the potent downfield attack they didn’t have most of last season.
“It’s a quarterback league and it’s a speed game,” Veach said. “The more speed you have on the field, the harder it is for defenses to take away different elements of the game. Anytime you can add speed and add a guy with that type of versatility, you’re going to be interested. We have a couple of guys now that I think can keep defenses guessing. We have a good thing going here.
“Anytime you can add that type of offensive firepower — I mean, 4.21, that’s pretty legit speed there. … When you look at these guys and some of their success in the NFL, we always look at how they transitioned into college, and Xavier was a guy who put up big numbers as a freshman.”
The Chiefs were, however, concerned about Worthy’s slight build. They list him at 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds. The Chiefs’ next lightest wideout is Brown, listed at 180 pounds.
Those concerns were overcome by his injury history at Texas, of which there was nothing significant. He proved durable and didn’t sit out a game in three college seasons.
“He’s not a big kid, or at least weight-wise,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “He’s got good height. He’s just not very heavy, but I think you’ll see this toughness that he’s got, which jumped out at me. When you talk to a coach — [Texas] coach [Steve] Sarkisian and I are close — and he kept talking about how smart he was. He’s got great football instincts, and he’s a tremendous worker. And, in this offense, you have to be able to do that and have those characteristics.”
For his part, Worthy wanted to play for a team that would use him in other ways beyond running deep routes. Playing alongside a quarterback with Mahomes’ skills was a bonus, as was playing for Reid, who coached Worthy’s favorite childhood player, wideout DeSean Jackson, when he was with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Though many wanted to compare Worthy to Tyreek Hill on draft night because of their speed, Reid compared Worthy to Jackson.
“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 said. “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.
“I feel like I can run it all and I feel like I’m effective from it all, mobile screens, reverses. Anywhere the ball touches my hands, I feel like I can make a play.”
ESTABLISHING WORTHY AS an NFL receiver got off to a slow start. He sat out most of offseason practice because of a sore hamstring.
Mahomes made up for it in training camp. He threw nearly all of his passes during one early rookie practice to Worthy. He called the first play of the preseason for him, though because of pressure Mahomes wasn’t able to get him the ball.
In the next game, Worthy caught a 39-yard pass from Mahomes and a 22-yard touchdown pass from Carson Wentz.
The Chiefs then held him out of the final preseason game, with Mahomes and their other regulars, not only to protect him from injury but because they felt he was ready for the regular season.
“He’s been able to pick up stuff fast,” Mahomes said. “He’s learning from his mistakes. We’re really opening up the playbook to him and he’s learning, and then it’s like he doesn’t get tired so he can take all the reps and he runs those deep routes, gets back in and even if he doesn’t necessarily want to, we make him go out there and do it again.”
Mahomes was unable to follow the first round of the draft closely because he was attending the Time 100 Gala in New York that night. Before it started, he texted Veach, wishing him good luck and telling him he would keep his phone on.
Veach gave Mahomes the news via text when they were on the clock and before the pick was official. By the time the Worthy pick was announced publicly, Mahomes had responded.
“He gave it the thumbs-up emoji and was pretty excited about it,” Veach said.
That excitement seems warranted after Worthy’s success in his debut.
“He goes out there and makes plays,” Mahomes said. “Obviously, we want to continue to use him more and more, but I thought he had a great day [against the Ravens], making big plays and big moments.”