In a 17-10 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, the Kansas City Chiefs suffered the loss of No. 1 wide receiver Rashee Rice. In Rice’s absence, an even larger responsibility fell to rookie first-round pick Xavier Worthy, who hauled in a deep touchdown and a game-sealing third-down conversion in KC’s win. After the game, Worthy and quarterback Patrick Mahomes discussed Worthy’s strong performance and how the duo connected on KC’s longest play of the season.
During his postgame press conference, Mahomes was asked about his view of the rookie’s first four games of NFL action and the plays he made on Sunday in Los Angeles.
“The big-time catch down the field, some big-time third-down conversions, he’s a great football player,” Mahomes said. “I think he’s just getting more and more comfortable within the offense. When I go back to the tape, I feel like there’s going to be a couple more that I thought about taking those chances, and I think he ended up winning, and so as I build comfortability with him, I’ll keep taking those chances, and when he makes plays like that, like he did today, it’ll give me that ability to kind of shoot him and let him go out there one-on-one and make catches.”
Worthy’s touchdown — a 54-yard bomb from Mahomes late in the second quarter — traveled 62.2 yards in the air, according to Next Gen Stats, making it the longest-thrown completion of Mahomes’s career.
During his postgame media availability, Worthy explained his view of the score by recounting what he told Mahomes about his matchup earlier in the game.
“We talked about it on the sideline,” Worthy said. “I told Pat, probably around the first quarter, ‘If you get this play call, I’m [going to] stutter it a little bit at the top of the route, and it worked. It worked out just like that, which is crazy.”
From the quarterback’s perspective, Mahomes recounted the conversation with the rookie that led to KC’s most explosive score of the season.
“I told him, ‘If the safety comes down, I’m throwing it, pretty much as far as I can,’ and letting him go catch it,” Mahomes said. “And that’s what he did.”
Worthy mentioned adding the stutter at the top of his route — was that the key to the play?
“I feel like I would have had it if I would have run it straight,” Worthy said. “But the stutter just added a little bit of sauce to it.”
