2024-09-14 11:20:02
Friday brought an unpleasant series of updates to the Kansas City Chiefs and wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown. According to multiple reports, Brown will be placed on injured reserve and will undergo surgery to repair his sternoclavicular joint dislocation suffered in the first week of the preseason.
While injured reserve stints have a minimum of a four-week absence, Brown is projected to miss much more than the next few weeks. James Palmer reported that “there really isn’t any timeline at this point for a return. There is a real concern Brown could miss the season per sources.”
After Friday’s practice, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed Brown’s setback.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with ‘Hollywood,'” Reid said. “He’s a great kid, and nobody wanted to do this more than he did, so our hearts go out to him, but he’ll get himself back and ready to go down the road here, whenever that time is. We don’t know exactly how long that’ll be, but it does take a pretty extended amount of time to take place.”
Reid was then asked if he believes Brown will return this season.
“We’ve just gotta ride it out and see how long it takes,” Reid said. “It’s not going to be weeks. More like months, so we’ll see where that takes us in this process. But that’s the information we have, but we’re just going to have to hold tight on that.”
Shortly before Reid spoke to the media, Brown took to Twitter/X to express his frustration and disappointment:
Disappointed , frustrated, and Sad was the first wave of emotions once I realized I would need surgery but that only lasted a day or so because Of my Faith in God. knowing that this to shall pass , no matter the great opportunity I had in front of me. It’s not over and that’s not the path God wanted for me and I’m perfectly fine with that now .
I feel it’s my duty to let everyone know out there no matter if things are going good or not going the way you want it to, never wary from your faith but to lean and trust into God no matter the situation…With that being said let’s enjoy some great football !!
Let’s go Chiefs!! See yall Soon
Disappointed , frustrated, and Sad was the first wave of emotions once I realized I would need surgery but that only lasted a day or so because Of my Faith in God. 🙏🏿 knowing that this to shall pass , no matter the great opportunity I had in front of me. It’s not over and that’s…
— Hollywood Brown (@Primetime_jet) September 13, 2024
While the Chiefs’ offense looked good while running through Rashee Rice against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1, the team now faces several complicating factors in the wide receiver rotation.
While Rice played 78% of the offensive snaps against Baltimore and Xavier Worthy played 63%, Justin Watson — a useful player but not the same type of weapon — played 52%. The workload drop-off came after Watson, as JuJu Smith-Schuster (22%), Skyy Moore (19%) and Mecole Hardman (0%) saw significantly fewer opportunities.
Ultimately, in an offense with Travis Kelce (and Noah Gray), a Kelce/Rice/Worthy trio is still a high-ceiling group of pass catchers. However, the margin for error is now essentially gone.
Brown/Rice/Worthy was an incredible trio. Rice/Worthy as your unquestioned 1/2 (plus Kelce) can and should absolutely work, but now you’re one 175-pound injury away from basically running back the 2023 group. It just got precarious very quickly.
— Joshua Brisco (@jbbrisco) September 13, 2024
The Chiefs appear incredibly lucky that Rice wasn’t suspended ahead of the 2024 season, and Worthy, one game into his NFL career, now must continue to climb and embrace his accelerated learning curve. The Brown/Rice/Worthy trio had a chance to be one of the best in the league. Now, any injury or limitation to the 175-pound rookie would send the wide receiver group plummeting toward 2023’s much-maligned depth chart.
I’m not predicting any mishaps for Worthy, nor do I believe in any way that his slight frame is doomed to fail at the NFL level. But in a sport where injuries are a fact of life, any missed action from the rookie would see the Chiefs returning to the ’23 crew of Rice, Watson, Hardman and Moore, with Smith-Schuster essentially swapping spots with Marquez Valdes-Scantling. (Any hiccups for Rice’s availability could have an even more detrimental impact.) Perhaps Justyn Ross will rejoin the active roster after signing to the practice squad following this year’s roster cutdown.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, none of those patchwork options are anything nearly as dynamic as Brown, and the group may not be able to weather another issue amongst their wide receivers until Brown — hopefully — returns to the field.
