KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wide receiver Marquise Brown, one of the Kansas City Chiefs‘ biggest offseason additions, will not play in Thursday night’s season opener against the Baltimore Ravens, coach Andy Reid said.
“Hollywood won’t be back this week and we’ll just see how it goes [from there],” Reid said. “But the kid’s amazing. I mean, his progress has been incredible, but I wouldn’t predict him being there this week.”
Brown dislocated a shoulder on the Chiefs’ first offensive play of the preseason.
The Chiefs planned to not have Brown for the game earlier in the week when they kept seven wide receivers on their active roster. The list includes Xavier Worthy, the Chiefs’ 2024 first-round draft pick, Rashee Rice, their leading wide receiver last season, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who signed with the Chiefs this week.
Reid said he planned to play the other six receivers against the Ravens. He said quarterback Patrick Mahomes has worked enough with all of them, including Smith-Schuster.
Smith-Schuster was the Chiefs’ leading wide receiver in 2022. He played last season with the New England Patriots and was released during training camp.
“He looks great right now and he jumped right back in and had some good practices for us,” Reid said. “So it’s just a matter of him getting banged around a little bit. … He’ll get all that as the season goes, but it’s good to have him back in the mix there, for sure.”
Reid said that while Worthy has not yet played in a regular-season NFL game, he has performed well in practice.
“One that is unknown is Worthy having not played in an NFL game, a real NFL game other than a preseason game with him and practice,” Reid said. “But what I’ve seen is they have a pretty good thing going and we’ll just see how it goes when things are flying here fast and furious.
“He spent a lot of time with Pat and receivers, the veteran guys, just figuring out what Pat’s expecting or where he needs to be or what the coaches are asking him to do. He’s not afraid to ask and then he’s been willing to try everything. So whether it’s an inside route, one of those intermediate routes with long routes, he’s been very willing to get in there and mix it up. So I like what I’ve seen. Just like with any rookie that’s coming into this thing, you want to see how they do in the games, but you’d think [Worthy would] probably do [well].”
