NFL superstar Xavier Worthy spills all on Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ struggles… and having Taylor Swift as his No 1 fan

Xavier Worthy has long had a side-hustle to juggle alongside football: reading runes as well as running routes.

The wide receiver, a 165lb bolt of lightning, was barely 10 years old when he began discussing building his non-profit – The Worthy 1’s Foundation – once he reached the NFL.

He was still year away from the draft when he told his mom that he would join the Kansas City Chiefs. ‘I said it so much that she believed,’ Worthy recalls.

Then the 22-year-old predicted that he would break the 40-yard dash record at the NFL Combine. Two years on, his time of 4.21s still stands alone.

‘The tongue is strong – whatever you say can happen,’ Worthy tells the Daily Mail. ‘I believe in just speaking out loud: don’t put nothing in the world that you don’t want to happen. I always put good stuff in the world… and it pops up.’

So perhaps fans – in Kansas City and across the NFL – should pay attention when he offers his verdict on what lies ahead for the Chiefs in 2026. ‘We’re going to make it right,’ Worthy says.

Taylor Swift was among those to ‘freak out’ when Kansas City selected Worthy with the 28th overall pick of the 2024 draft.

She informed Travis Kelce that he had a new teammate and then she watched as Worthy and her fiance led the Chiefs back to the Super Bowl. 

Alas, Andy Reid’s team were humiliated by the Eagles in New Orleans and then, last season, the Chiefs dynasty crumbled.

After five Super Bowl appearances in six seasons Kansas City failed to make the playoffs. Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL; Worthy needed surgery after tearing his labrum.

The 22-year-old’s shoulder popped out after he collided with Kelce on the Chiefs’ third offensive play of the season. Worthy struggled through the pain before eventually going under the knife in January. 

It capped a difficult 12 months for Worthy – on and off the field. Last March, the 22-year-old was arrested for allegedly strangling a family or household member, only for Worthy to accuse his partner of infidelity and an extortion plot. The assault charge against the NFL star was quickly dismissed.

‘Last year was a down year for me,’ he says. ‘Obviously you want to just forget about it and move on… next year, I’m going to come back and be better.’

Worthy is speaking to the Daily Mail from his backyard in Austin, Texas, where he is in rehab ahead of the 2026 campaign. 

That means double sessions by himself before eventually jetting out to Kansas City to train alongside Mahomes. Predictions don’t come true through intuition alone, after all. ‘Your work ethic has to match your tongue,’ Worthy says.

The Chiefs are striving to rebuild and right some wrongs, too. On Monday, Kansas City signed running back – and reigning Super Bowl MVP – Kenneth Walker III. Then it emerged that Kelce was putting off retirement to return for a 14th season.

The tight end, 36, has agreed to a one-year, $12million contract that he hopes will end with a fourth Super Bowl ring.

Worthy did not discuss the future with Kelce. ‘I know Travis is gonna make the right decision,’ he said before news of his teammate’s contract emerged. The 22-year-old called it right again. And, over the past couple of seasons, Worthy has learned what makes Kelce so special.

‘It’s cool watching and learning and picking his brains,’ he says. It turns out that Kelce has his own crystal ball.

‘When he tells you: “Sometimes you can slow down and do this, or sometimes you should think about doing this,” Worthy says. ‘It’s exactly how it plays out.’

The receiver continues: ‘He’s a future Hall of Famer and he walks around just like a normal guy. So it makes everybody just [realize]: OK, I could go in there and be [my] person. No need to try to be better than the next person.’

Has Worthy had the chance to meet his biggest fan? ‘I met her and shook her hand,’ he says of Swift. They chatted after a game. ‘It was cool,’ Worthy continues. ‘She’s a mega star.’ And she will be hoping the 22-year-old can help return the Chiefs to their perch.

‘If you’re not hoping to get to the Super Bowl, what are you playing the game for?’ Worthy says.

The 22-year-old scored two touchdowns against the Eagles at Super Bowl LIX. Unfortunately, Worthy has only one abiding memory of that night in New Orleans. ‘We lost,’ he says.

This offseason, in pursuit of another championship, the Chiefs have brought back offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

‘I can’t wait to get out there and play for him. I’ve heard great things,’ Worthy says. So what have his teammates said? ‘[He is] somebody who is going to motivate you and prepare you and propel you.’

In 2025, the Chiefs went 6-11 in a season of unwanted firsts. No AFC West title for the first time since 2015. No playoff spot for the first time since 2014. No winning record for the first time since 2012.

Still, though, Worthy insists: ‘Nothing was really wrong… football is a game of inches. We just didn’t make those plays count when it was time.’

Responsibility ultimately falls on the shoulders of head coach Andy Reid, 67. ‘ A coach that cares about you outside of football and cares about your well-being and making sure you’re keeping up with yourself,’ Worthy explains.

‘If you can’t keep up with yourself, how are you going to be good on the field? That’s what Coach Reid is all about. You can’t ask to play for a better coach coming in as a rookie.’

The receiver continues: ‘Coach Reid wants you to be your natural self. So he always says: “Put that smile on your face.” And that’s somebody that you want to play for, you want to leave it on the line for.’

Reid is notorious for putting his players through brutal training camps to prepare them for the season. Worthy has never known any different, having joined the Chiefs straight out of Texas, and he believes those sessions breed a ‘killer mindset.’ Why? ‘Nothing’s going to be harder than what you do at practice,’ he explains.

Except, perhaps, facing their rivals without Mahomes. The star quarterback is facing a battle to fix his knee in time for Week 1.

‘I’ve never seen somebody as competitive as Pat,’ Worthy says. ‘He’s always going to try to be Superman.’

On the field, Worthy has spent two years trying to connect with his quarterback. On the golf course, however, the 22-year-old tries to steer clear of Mahomes and Kelce.

‘I’m not playing with them yet,’ he says. Worthy took up the sport alongside his manager, Donte West. ‘I have to get really good in order to play with them – I’m not about to go out there and suck!’

Maybe Worthy needs to speak improvement into his golf game. ‘Whatever you want, you got to be able to manifest it,’ he says.

That was a lesson learned during his childhood in Fresno, California. Nicky Jones was only 18 when she gave birth to Worthy in April 2003. The receiver now has two little sisters but for a while it was a family of two.

‘She was young when she had me, she was struggling, so just to be able to provide and get me to where I am now shows the sacrifices she made,’ Worthy says.

‘I saw it every day – there were times when we didn’t have nothing in the fridge but she’d go find scraps and just cook it up… she found a way. So why can’t I find a way? That’s how I go about what I do in football and just life.’

Worthy was still a kid when they began discussing creating a non-profit. ‘When I get to the league, we’re gonna start something that can help single moms,’ he would say.

The Worthy 1’s Foundation was launched last summer in Kansas City. It is now moving into two other states that shaped him: Texas and California. Among its programs? Offering financial packages for moms returning to education and sports camps for kids.

Worthy recently hosted a Christmas gift giveaway and paid off a nursing student’s tuition. ‘It’s obviously a blessing just to have that, but to do it [after] we talked about it… this makes it more meaningful.’

Jones co-founded the organization with her son and now serves as executive director. ‘I started [the] foundation purely for her,’ Worthy says. ‘It’s her own sanctuary.’

She used to work at the Fresno Grizzlies, the local minor-league baseball team. Worthy would visit her office and grab snacks from the freezer.

It didn’t help him bulk up – the receiver remains just 5ft 11ins and 165lbs. But at 22, Worthy is midway through a four-year, $14m deal in Kansas City and he recently spent time with troubled kids at a juvenile correctional facility in Missouri.

‘I know what it’s like to be overlooked, to be in an environment where you feel like you can’t make it out,’ he says. He was a small kid in a small high school in a small city in California. ‘The chances were kind of low,’ he says.

‘I feel like I could relate to them… and probably reach them,’ Worthy explains. ‘I just wanted to be able to be that change… get their spark going, and maybe boost them to be something they thought they couldn’t.’

He knows he is ‘blessed’ to be chasing Super Bowls. ‘Now,’ Worthy says, ‘I want to be able to just pour back into where I came from.’