It’s been a week since the NFL Draft ended for the Kansas City Chiefs. The team will review the new roster of kids they drafted this weekend. Two of the gems the team selected are wide Receiver Xavier Worthy and Tight End Jared Wiley. This tandem has a chance to have long careers together.
Before the NFL Draft, Texas Wide Receiver Xavier Worthy established himself as the fastest man in football. Since the NFL Combine, he has spoken often about his desire to play with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Last month, that dream came true.
Tight End Jared Wiley was not a name Chiefs fans were aware of entering the 2024 NFL draft. Most fans felt the team needed to draft a young tight end, but they had yet to learn that the former TCU star was heading to Kansas City and could one day be a fixture in the Chiefs offense.
Though Worthy and Wiley have yet to play a snap for the Chiefs, they bring strong college resumes to their positions as top-echelon talents. They also share a common goal: besides playing in the Big XII conference, they each dealt with inconsistent play at the quarterback position at Texas and TCU.
For Wiley, it was much more challenging.
“Yeah. I’ve had to learn five different offenses while I was in college so this is my sixth one in six years. It’s part of my normal routine now I guess so I don’t think I’ll have much trouble with it,” Wiley told reporters on Saturday.
Yet, they overcame those adjustments and found themselves high draft commodities. Worthy’s electric speed, great route running, and ability to create space at Texas made him a logical choice for the Chiefs.
On the other hand, Wiley fell through the cracks even though he led TCU in every receiving category. In his post-draft film, I saw that he looked very similar to Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce. I’m not comparing them from a production standpoint but from where he lines up on the field.
“As far as the coaches, just get in here and learn the offense as fast as possible and be a key contributor on the team however that looks, whether it’s special teams, offense, whatever they ask me to do, I’ll do it. My expectations of myself are basically that, I want to come in here, I want to get comfortable, I want to learn the brand and style of football that they play here in Kansas City. I want to be able to do that to the best of my ability.” Wiley said confidently.
The pressure in this duo doesn’t rest with Wiley but with Worthy. It can be daunting as a first-round talent with lofty expectations to perform at the highest level in the NFL. However, Worthy seems to have enjoyed the first week as a Kansas City Chief.
“It’s been fun, learning the new offense and seeing how they run stuff, and just getting the flow of things. It reminds me a lot of Sark’s (Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian) playbook, a lot of similarities, just a lot of different names to it. It’s going to be fun to play in this offense,” he told reporters.
Worthy benefited from a great offensive system at Texas, so adjusting the Chiefs’ offense shouldn’t be an uphill grind. Instead, because of his world-class speed, he can overcome some uneasy steps as he learns the offense.
The Chiefs rookie camp won’t give us an authentic taste of what the ‘W’ boys can do. That will have to wait until the King arrives for the first Mini Camp.
The judge, of course, of how they can be incorporated into the offense will be up to Mahomes. Though he’s already worked with both of them in Texas, if the Chiefs’ offense is going to take the next step, Worthy and Wiley might be why the offensive ills of 2023 become the strengths of 2024.
