You’re as surprised as I am, right? We can all acknowledge we didn’t see this coming from the Kansas City Chiefs’ wide receiver Tyquan Thornton.
Sure… he was the buzz of training camp. But we’ve all seen this story before. The darling of training camp often fizzles out by the start of the regular season — and even those who make the roster are often remembered more for their preseason highlight reels than anything they do when the games matter.
This story, though, seems to have a different ending.
It might just be there is something more lasting — more permanent — in Thornton.
And he might be exactly what the doctor ordered for the Chiefs’ offense.
Yes… not everything in the Kansas City offense has been fixed. Its performance against the New York Giants certainly left plenty to be desired. But so far, this season has been about the offense taking baby steps. One of those is taking the top off of defenses with more deep balls. These are risky throws — but as we learned during quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ first couple of years as a starter, their potential reward is substantial.
In recent years, however, the two-time MVP hasn’t displayed much trust in his wide receivers’ ability to win their downfield routes — simply because many of his wideouts have earned that distrust. That’s why Mahomes’ deep-ball attempts have been decreasing every year.
Until now, that is.
Trust between Mahomes and Thornton is growing visibly. On Sunday, Mahomes targeted Thornton with four passes that traveled at least 20 yards downfield. While Thornton only caught one, it resulted in a 33-yard gain — Kansas City’s fifth-longest passing play of the season. Thornton has now been involved in three of the team’s five longest pass plays of 2025.
According to Pro Football Focus, no NFL receiver has more deep targets than Thornton (11), He’s averaging more than 3.5 deep targets per game, which works out to 60 deep shots over a 17-game season.
This follows a season in which PFF counted just 54 Mahomes passes that traveled at least 20 yards through the air. That’s to everyone — not just one player. In 2025, the team’s leading pass-catcher — Xavier Worthy — finished with 21 such targets.
It’s been a long time since Mahomes targeted anyone deep down the field at this kind of pace. Justin Watson (24) and Marquez Valdes-Scantling (26) led the Chiefs in deep targets in 2023 and 2022. As you might expect, Tyreek Hill had 28, 38, 24 and 48 deep targets Mahomes’ first four seasons as the starter.
Thornton’s pace will likely slow down. DK Metcalf and Terry McLaurin led all NFL wide receivers with just 32 deep targets last year; Hill’s 2018 season was the last one with at least 45 deep shots.
But this is, of course, exactly what the Chiefs wanted. For two years. Kansas City has been promising an offense with more deep throws — but up to this point, it’s been more talk than action.
Even with Worthy (and nominal top wideout Rashee Rice) missing through the first three games of the season, Thornton’s presence has allowed the Chiefs to replace their talk with action.
Thornton is opening up the offense in a way the Chiefs haven’t done since Marquez Valdes-Scantling’s first year with the team. What will Kansas City do less than a month from now, when Worthy and Rice will both be back in the lineup? Who will be the third wide receiver? Will Hollywood Brown retain his snaps? Or will Thornton take his place?
Barring a significant change in his production, I would argue the case for Thornton. Not only is he a better downfield threat than Brown, he’s also taking more outside snaps (78%) than Brown (50%). That’s noteworthy because both Worthy and Rice do their best work from the slot, where there are only so many snaps to go around.
But all of that is to be determined. Here’s what’s important right now: the Chiefs have found an answer to one of their biggest offensive questions. That much is worthy of celebration — especially since it seemed to come out of nowhere.
