Will Xavier Worthy Make or Break your 2025 Fantasy Season?

Xavier Worthy is one of the most polarizing players in all of fantasy football this year. Depending on who you ask, you might hear that Worthy is a home run breakout candidate or nothing more than a low-upside gadget player. In this article, I’ll be sorting through Worthy’s complicated profile to assess if he’s worth drafting at his current ADP of WR23 and 50th overall.

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Worthy’s Rookie Year in Review

It was a tale of two halves for Xavier Worthy in his first season. After getting drafted in the 1st round of the 2024 NFL Draft, Worthy got off to a rather slow start. From Weeks 1 through 10, he totaled just 246 receiving yards on 20 receptions, and his 1.60 yards per route run during that stretch ranked 47th among receivers. From then on, Worthy flipped the script, amassing a much more respectable 392 yards on 39 catches from Weeks 11 through 17, finishing as the WR19 in fantasy football through that stretch. Worthy also stepped up in a big way during the Chiefs postseason run, capped off by a memorable 8/157/2 statline in their Super Bowl loss.

Worthy acted as a Swiss Army knife of sorts in the Chiefs offense. He lined up both out wide and in the slot last season, and as perhaps the fastest player in the NFL, also ran for 104 yards and three touchdowns on the ground through various end-arounds and jet sweeps. With this occasional reliance on manufactured touches, Worthy lacked the consistency needed to be a top fantasy asset last year. He had five games with under 20 receiving yards and zero touchdowns, but to his credit, all of them occurred before his Week 11 breakout. Worthy certainly showed enough in his rookie year to prove he can be a real receiver in the NFL.

Worthy in the Chiefs Offense

Worthy’s involvement in the Chiefs offense is difficult to predict this season because his entire breakout stretch occurred after top receiver Rashee Rice tore his LCL. In the three weeks Rice was healthy last season, he was one of the more impressive receivers in the league, commanding a 25.7% target share and racking up 288 receiving yards in three weeks. If Rice gets back to that level of dominance, it would be difficult to project a leap for Worthy, especially with Travis Kelce still in the mix as well.

It feels odd to say this about arguably the 2nd greatest quarterback of all time, but Worthy’s success this season will depend on how well Patrick Mahomes plays. In the last two seasons, Mahomes has taken a large step back in terms of offensive aggressiveness. After posting an average target depth (aDOT) over 7.6 for each of his first five seasons as a starter, Mahomes’ aDOT has fallen to 6.8 and 6.9 yards in the last two seasons. As a result, he has also posted career lows in yards per attempt and passing touchdowns in this stretch, acting closer to a game manager than a gunslinger. If this trend continues into 2025, there may not be enough targets for Rice, Kelce, and Worthy to coexist for fantasy purposes.

With that being said, Worthy is probably the smallest question mark of those three receiving threats. Rice may not recover fully from the LCL injury and get off to a slow start, and may also be suspended at some point during the season due to an impending multi-vehicle crash legal case. Kelce, on the other hand, showed extreme signs of decline last season and may start to get tapered down in the Chiefs offense to keep him fresh for the playoffs. Kelce still was peppered with 133 targets last season, 16th in the entire NFL, but if that number were to go down, it would be Rice and Worthy combining to fill in the vacancy.

Assessing Worthy’s Ceiling and Floor

Worthy has a wide range of outcomes this season, and reminds me a lot of the Jameson Williams fantasy dilemma from last year. Williams similarly profiled as the No. 3 receiver behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta for the Lions in 2024, but asserted himself as the No. 2 over LaPorta and finished as the overall WR19 in fantasy. I would put Worthy’s ceiling right around that mid-tier WR2 mark this year, and he could very realistically cross 1,000 scrimmage yards thanks to his added rushing floor. Worthy would need gaudy touchdown numbers to push towards WR1 territory, which may only be possible if we see Mahomes return to his prior aggressiveness on offense

Worthy’s floor, however, is rather low. If Rice plays the full season and is healthy, I struggle to see how Worthy sees enough consistent volume to remain a dependable fantasy play. His big-play ability makes him a viable spot-start in any given week, but I have concerns about his full-season outlook if everything goes smoothly with Rice.

Ultimately, Worthy’s ADP of WR23 is too close to his ceiling for me to target him in drafts this year. Even his 75th percentile outcome is likely an inconsistent one, where he burns you in as many weeks as he helps your team. I would rather take clear No. 1 receivers like Tetaiora McMillan, Zay Flowers, or Courtland Sutton in the range that Worthy is currently being drafted.

The Bottom Line

• Xavier Worthy salvaged a would-be disappointing rookie season down the stretch last year, and showed that he belongs in the NFL as a real receiver.
• Worthy faces a potential uphill climb towards targets this season, as a returning Rashee Rice will crowd a receiving room that also includes Travis Kelce.
• Worthy is a high-variance draft pick this season, but his price is too close to his fantasy ceiling to warrant drafting. Unless the Chiefs see an extreme offensive resurgence, Worthy will struggle to be a consistent fantasy option this season and should be treated more as a WR3/FLEX than a WR2.