Reid – WR Brown misses Chiefs opening game, progress “incredible”

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — Wide receiver Marquise Brown, one of the 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 is incredible. I mean, he's made incredible progress, but I wouldn't predict he'll be ready this week.”

Brown dislocated his shoulder during the Chiefs' first offensive play of the preseason.

The Chiefs had planned earlier in the week not to use Brown for the game because they had seven wide receivers on their active roster. The list includes Xavier Worthy, the Chiefs' 2024 first-round draft pick, Rashee Rice, their top wide receiver last season, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who signed with the Chiefs this week.

Reid said he plans to use the other six receivers against the Ravens. He said quarterback Patrick Mahomes has worked with all of them enough, including Smith-Schuster.

Smith-Schuster was the Chiefs' leading wide receiver in 2022. He played with the New England Patriots last season and was released during training camp.

“He's looking great right now and he's gotten right back into the game and put in some good training sessions for us,” Reid said. “So he's just taking a little bit of a beating. … He'll get all that as the season goes on, but it's definitely good to have him back.”

Reid said that although Worthy has not yet played in a regular season NFL game, he has performed well in practice.

“What people don't know is that Worthy has never played in an NFL game, a real NFL game, other than a preseason game and practice with him,” Reid said. “But I've seen them set up pretty well and we'll just see how it goes when everything happens fast and furious here.”

“He's spent a lot of time with Pat and the receivers, the experienced guys, trying to figure out what Pat is looking for or where he needs to be or what the coaches are asking him to do. He's not afraid to ask and he's willing to try anything. Whether it's an inside route or one of those intermediate routes with long routes, he's been very willing to jump into it and provide variety. I like what I've seen. Like any rookie coming into this thing, you want to see how they do in the games, but you'd think [Worthy would] probably [well].”