Thursday Newsletter: Xavier Worthy hitting his stride, what to do with Elic Ayomanor, and more!

After one day off, welcome back in for a Thursday edition of this NFL Draft newsletter!

We took the day off for Christmas, but are back today with a new NFL Draft newsletter.

We had some Christmas Day NFL football (no bowl games which was a bummer) to absorb, featuring some rookies with playoff aspirations. We’ll talk about one here. Moreso than anything else, however, we are reaching the point of getting into the heat of the NFL pre-draft process, which is truly the best time of the year.

So let’s talk about some NFL Draft quick-hitters before we get started on this Thursday! Given the holidays, it’s a pretty light day to cover.

Xavier Worthy hitting his stride with the Chiefs

One of the more impressive Christmas Day performances came from Kansas City Chiefs’ rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy. He finished their win over the Pittsburgh Steelers with 79 yards receiving and a touchdown on eight catches. He added another 10 yards on the ground on two carries.

This marks three games in a row where Worthy has racked up at least 75 total yards and a touchdown for the Chiefs. While it seemed that Worthy struggled to find his footing at the NFL level early in his career, he is hitting his stride and finding his role for the 15-1 Chiefs as the playoffs are now just one week away.

Adding DeAndre Hopkins and getting Marquise Brown helped free up a more specific role for Worthy and took a bit off his plate. And it’s making him and the Kansas City offense more dangerous.

One of the most confusing prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft class

So I watched Stanford wideout Elic Ayomanor, most known for hanging 200 receiving yards on Travis Hunter and Colorado in 2023. And I am convinced he is the most confusing player in the draft class.

He’s listed at 6-2, but he prefers to play small and lacks the nuance with his hands to play physically down the field or at the catch point consistently. He’s twitchy off the line of scrimmage and keeps himself clean, but he’s not an overly fluid route runner.

A team could get a solid, productive player, but he might be better off playing as a big slot than trying to fight along the boundary as a typical X (if he’ll absorb some contact over the middle of the field). Even if everything about his profile screams he should be an X.

Check out a new Daft or Draft!? episode

Dalton and I jumped back into the seat to record another Daft or Draft!? podcast episode. In this episode, we hit these three hot takes:

-Did the CFP committee get the format right?

-Should the Raiders hunt Cam Ward because of the threat of Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes?

-Is Alabama LB Jihaad Campbell LB1 in the 2025 NFL Draft?

Tap in!