Arrowhead Pride
For over a dozen seasons, Kansas City Chiefs fans have learned the importance of head coach Andy Reid’s opening offensive script.
But that 15-play plan was dealt a crippling blow in Friday’s 27-21 season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil. Second-year wideout Xavier Worthy — widely expected to be the team’s primary offensive weapon while fellow receiver Rashee Rice serves a six-game suspension — was lost after suffering a dislocated shoulder on the offense’s third play. With Worthy in the locker room, the Chiefs punted on each of their first three drives, gaining only 28 net yards over a dozen plays.
Even so, quarterback Patrick Mahomes has confidence in the team’s other wide receivers during Worthy and Rice’s absences.
“I think it’s more just getting guys into the right spots,” the face of the league told reporters before Wednesday’s practice. “Obviously, you try to rep and give guys opportunities at every single receiver position, but there’s only limited reps. So, when you have an injury, you have guys going in different spots [where] they haven’t got those reps before.
“But I thought the guys did well as the game went on — adjusting to that, stepping up and making plays. I thought they did really good in the second half of giving us a chance to go out there and try to get a win.”
The Chiefs’ offense did come to life in its three second-half drives, gaining 208 yards and scoring 17 points. Mahomes believes his first big connection with one of the players stepping up for Worthy — former New England Patriots second-round pick Tyquan Thornton — sparked the rally that made the game competitive. With the Philadelphia Eagles on tap for a Super Bowl LIX rematch on Sunday, Mahoems knows the pace will need to pick up much earlier in the game.
“I missed a couple of shots,” Mahomes recalled, “but once I hit that one to Tyquan down the sideline towards halftime — I thought from then on, I did a good job of kind of recognizing when to take shots, when to hit the stuff underneath and just getting the ball out to guys and letting them make plays. So [I’m] just trying to do that faster, so that we’re not in that deficit.
“It will be important this week — especially with how [the Eagles] play football, and how they can run the ball and throw the ball on their side of the football — being better from the beginning and not just as the game goes on.”
One receiver the Chiefs will likely try to get heavily involved against the Eagles is veteran Hollywood Brown, who finished Friday’s game with 10 receptions for 99 yards — including a 49-yard bomb from Mahomes late in the fourth quarter as the Chiefs attempted an unsuccessful comeback.
“I think Hollywood just kind of got more and more comfortable as the game went on,” Mahomes observed, “and we asked him to do a lot of...
