The Kansas City Chiefs reflected some good news and bad news with their official inactives list before Monday Night Football in Week 5. As the Chiefs prepare to visit EverBank Stadium to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars, they will be without two key defensive contributors. However, they did get some good news on the offensive front.
Leading with the good news, wide receiver Xavier Worthy is active for the Chiefs in primetime, which means the offensive firepower unleashed with his arrival in Week 4 in a dominant win over the Baltimore Ravens could reappear in Week 5. The primary question is just how much the Chiefs will lean on Worthy knowing he was questionable coming into the game.
The Chiefs were without Worthy from the first offensive series of the season with a torn labrum in Week 1 and he went on to miss the next two games. He returned last week and led the team in receiving yards and rushing yards against Baltimore, but he was a late addition to the injury report with a sore ankle on Sunday.
Word was that Worthy was trending toward playing, and while it's good news that he's going to suit up, it doesn't mean that the team's former first-round pick is going to look like his dynamic self out there. Being available is just step one, and it will be interesting to see whether or not Worthy is favoring that ankle early in the game.
As for the bad news, the Chiefs did announce that they will be without cornerback Kristian Fulton and defensive tackle Omarr Norman-Lott against the Jaguars. Both players are in their first seasons in Kansas City in 2025.
Fulton has struggled to stay healthy since signing in K.C. He missed nearly all of training camp, and he's played only 17 snaps so far this season on defense. He's a starting-caliber corner when active, but the Chiefs will once again lean heavily on rookie corner Nohl Williams in his absence. Fortunately, Williams has been up to the task.
As for Norman-Lott, he was the Chiefs' second-round pick out of Tennessee as a disruptive defensive tackle brought in to not only bolster the position but spell Chris Jones for key intervals. Without him, expect Jones to play more snaps than he should at his age, unless the Chiefs can get some distance from the Jags early on the road.
The full list of inactive players for the Chiefs are as follows for Week 5:
* Kristian Fulton, CB
* Omarr Norman-Lott, DT
* Jared Wiley, TE
* Elijah Mitchell, RB
* Malik Herring, DL
* Hunter Nourzad, OL