The silence after the Kansas City Chiefs’ 20-13 Christmas Day loss to the Denver Broncos spoke volumes. While Kansas City nursed another home defeat, second-year wide receiver Xavier Worthy retreated to Instagram with a message that felt more like surrender than motivation. And after the week he’s just had, it’s not surprising.

“Accept what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be,” Worthy wrote on his Instagram story. Black backdrop, white text, no flair.

For a receiver who exploded onto the scene with nine touchdowns as a rookie, the cryptic post landed with an unsettling weight. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Worthy’s Week 17 performance against Denver was virtually invisible. He missed all three targets from quarterback Chris Oladokun and just managed a single rushing yard on one carry.

It was just another game where the dynamic playmaker from 2024 simply couldn’t show up. After catching 59 passes for 638 yards in his electrifying rookie campaign, Worthy has just managed one touchdown through 14 games this season. While this contrast in itself is jarring, his Instagram message also reads like he’s given up on the season.

What makes Worthy’s post particularly concerning is what it suggests about his mindset. This isn’t a player vowing to bounce back or promising better days ahead. For the first time since 2014, the Chiefs are irrelevant in December. They’re eliminated from the playoffs. Franchise quarterback Patrick Mahomes is rehabbing his torn ACL; backup Gardner Minshew is also nursing a hurt knee. And after watching the Chiefs struggle through offensive inconsistency all season, it’s hard to blame him for feeling defeated.

For Worthy, the decline started straight out of Week 1 when he collided with Travis Kelce and injured his shoulder. The Chiefs had the entire season ahead of them at that point. And when Worthy returned in late September, he still looked like an offensive piece Mahomes could build with.

But through 14 games so far, he’s just made 42 catches for 532 receiving yards with that single touchdown. His explosiveness has vanished, he’s struggling with separations, and his targets have dried up. The connection with Mahomes that sparked so brightly last year is nowhere to be found. No major injury (except that Week 1 setback and an ankle injury later) explains it. The coaching staff remains unchanged. Yet the production has cratered in ways nobody saw coming.

The Christmas Day loss only crystallized the nightmare. And then came the cryptic post looking into the future. This didn’t feel like a slump; it was more like a player questioning his entire trajectory. But this leads to a bigger question. If Worthy can’t rediscover his rookie form, does he even have a future in Kansas City’s offense?

What’s next for Xavier Worthy in Kansas City?

Worthy remains under contract all the way to the 2027 season on his four-year rookie deal worth $13.79 million. That timeline should provide job security, but the Chiefs’ history suggests otherwise. Kansas City doesn’t tolerate prolonged underperformance, especially at the receiver position. They’ve proven ruthlessly efficient at moving on from disappointing players.

Consider the precedent. Sammy Watkins was released after inconsistent returns despite flashes of brilliance. Tyreek Hill got traded when the franchise decided the investment no longer matched the value. Mecole Hardman bounced around despite showing potential. Demarcus Robinson found opportunities elsewhere after Kansas City declined to keep him. The pattern is clear: produce, or get replaced.

Moreover, several Chiefs receivers (Hollywood Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Tyquan Thornton) are hitting free agency after this season, creating roster flexibility. If Kansas City wants to reload its receiving corps with fresh talent, Worthy’s disastrous 2025 campaign creates major competition for him entering 2026. Another season of minimal production, and he could join the list of promising players who couldn’t sustain success in Andy Reid’s system.

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Xavier Worthy is banking on “faith in what will be.” It sounds hopeful on the surface. But faith alone won’t save a struggling NFL career. He’s got one offseason to figure out what went wrong and fix it. Otherwise, that cryptic post might be remembered as the moment he acknowledged that the magic is gone.