The 20 best wide receivers in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs

To the outsider, a ranking of the Kansas City Chiefs' best wide receivers will look a little thin. Sure, there are names worth celebrating and plenty of productive entries, but not only is the overall list lacking as much dynamism up top as most teams' countdowns, but the list also looks a bit mediocre at the bottom.

That's the problem when a team's two greatest pass-catchers ever are both tight ends. Just imagine if both Travis Kelce and Tony Gonzalez were wideouts. That would knock all of these players down multiple spots, and things would seem more "normal." Instead, the Chiefs' offensive numbers have bent in some funky ways in the modern era, and we have the following results.

Funky or not, however, the rankings must go on. Here's our rundown of the top 20 receivers in Chiefs history.

Criteria for selection

For the most part, we allowed a player's core stats to mark his place in the rankings—career receptions, yards, and touchdowns.

In a couple of instances, however, longevity allowed lesser players to rise above those who were more impactful over a shorter period of time. When those situations arose, we allowed per-game averages to tell a more accurate story.

The 20 best wide receivers in Chiefs history

20. Johnnie Morton

In the 2002 offseason, the Chiefs were looking to replace the aging Derrick Alexander with a proven top-tier wide receiver to take advantage of the open looks provided by the presence of Priest Holmes in the running game and Tony Gonzalez at tight end. They also likely wanted someone who could help 2000 first-rounder Sylvester Morris find his footing.

In order to get their man, the Chiefs went big that spring with a seven-year offer to Johnnie Morton, who was coming off his fourth 1,000-yard season in five years for the Detroit Lions. Despite the fact he was turning 31, the Chiefs signed Morton and hoped for the best.

While he put up decent enough numbers (134 catches for 1,932 yards and eight touchdowns) in three seasons with the Chiefs, Morton never quite found his footing in such a crowded offense. He wound up playing one more year for the 49ers at age 34 before retiring from the league.

19. Mecole Hardman

It might surprise you to see Mecole Hardman among the 20 best wide receivers in team history, but he's No. 23 overall on the team's all-time receiving yards list, and that includes running backs and tight ends as well. The truth is that decent production over a handful of seasons will get you far in a league where it's tough to stay healthy.

While Hardman has never quite lived up to his draft billing as the team's first overall selection in the 2019 NFL Draft, the truth is that he was always Plan B in case the Tyreek Hill saga went south. In that light, Hardman has carved out a fine career as a receiver and returner who has come up big for the Chiefs in multiple moments—including a certain Super Bowl-winning catch.

Hardman currently has 165 career catches for 2,212 receiving yards and 16 scores for the Chiefs. Even an average campaign of a few hundred more yards would push him toward the franchise's top 15.

18. Sammy Watkins

Subjective lists are always going to inspire debate, but the placement of Sammy Watkins is one of the toughest calls to make for key reasons.

For some, Watkins at No. 17 will likely feel too low. While his modest production in three seasons in Kansas City place him alongside the Johnnie Mortons on our list, the truth is that health concerns kept him from breaking out in a major way as the third catalyst in a historic offense for the Chiefs. When healthy and effective, Watkins was unstoppable, as illustrated by his 288 yards in three postseason games during the team's Super Bowl run of 2019.

That said, a player's best ability is his availabilty, as the great Bill Parcells once said, and Watkins cost the Chiefs $48 million over three years only to average 43 catches for 537 yards over his three years in K.C. His contract was an albatross at that production level, which helps make the argument that he doesn't even belong on this list.

With both sides weighing in, it feels right to put him here and appreciate his best moments because they led to the first taste of championship glory for a generation of football fans.

17. J.T. Smith

While there are several instances of the Chiefs unlocking the best years of several players, it's also true that a few have gotten away over the years. One such story belongs to J.T. Smith.

Smith was originally a productive defensive back out of North Texas in the mid-'70s who had hopes of disrupting passes at the professional level. However, after going undrafted, he did earn some attention from Chiefs scouts who thought he might profile best as a receiver instead.

It took some time, but Smith proved them right in multiple ways.

Not only was he thrilling to watch on special teams (four punts returned for touchdowns in 1978-79), but he also grew to be a solid receiver in K.C. through the '84 season. Unfortunately from there, he blossomed after leaving for the St. Louis Cardinals by averaging 85 catches for 1,039 yards and six scores over a three-year period from 1986-88.

16. Rashee Rice

Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves, but honestly the list of other players who could have occupied this spot wasn't impressive enough to leave Rashee Rice off at this stage of his career.

Look, we can all make the arguments back and forth at this point since the story is so fresh. On the one hand, Rice is a character concern who is already facing a lengthy suspension at some point in the near future with only one full season credited to his name. It's a risk putting someone like that on an all-time list as it is, especially one so young.

On the other hand, Rice just set Chiefs rookie records as a receiver, and most of that first-year production came as the game slowed down for him in the second half. In 2024, he's blossomed into the team's primary weapon. You can't be the most trusted outlet for Patrick Mahomes while chasin ga three-peat and not be listed here somewhere.

By the end of this year, he could edge even higher, but this feels generous enough while maintaining some historical perspective.

15. Andre Rison

If you look at the numbers, you might be surprised. Perhaps an audible gasp will escape you. That's because Andre Rison is No. 52 on the NFL's all-time receiving yards list with 10,205—a number north of Marques Colston, Wes Welker, Shannon Sharpe, and even Tyreek Hill.

Looking back at Rison's career, that number feels off knowing the Colts' first-round pick in the 1989 draft played for seven different franchises in 12 seasons, including three in Kansas City. In that span, he was traded, released, arrested, and had his mansion set on fire by his girlfriend (Lisa Lopes from TLC).

By the time he arrived in Kansas City, Bad Moon Rison was 30 years old and entering the journeyman phase of his career, but he enjoyed a solid resurgence in his first season in KC with 72 catches for 1,092 yards. Of course, that came amid an overwhelming amount of targets (151) as the only trusted player at the position. (Lake Dawson was next among WRs with 36.)

Two more years yielded middling results, to the point he had only 21 catches for 218 yards in his third and final season with the team. To make matters worse, he and fellow Chiefs teammate Rich Gannon reunited the following year with the Raiders and teamed up for multiple scores to beat the Chiefs.

14. Jeremy Maclin

The entire saga of Jeremy Maclin in Kansas City is worth its own post looking back. But for our purposes, this feels about the right place to set his short-lived tenure with the Chiefs.

Remember, the Chiefs had zero touchdown catches from their wide receiving corps in 2014, so it felt like a major win when they inked Maclin to a five-year, $55 million deal in 2015 to remake the position. With 1,088 receiving yards on 87 catches and eight scores in his first season with the team, it looked like a solid pairing.

Unfortunately, Maclin proved to be a better secondary target than a primetime receiver, and Dorsey's valuation in 2015 became too much going into 2017—so much so that he shocked the team by releasing him as a post-June 1 cut so he could finish signing the team's draft class. At the time, even Travis Kelce went public about his feelings, saying it "ripped his heart out."

Still, Maclin gave the Chiefs one great season and another mediocre one, along with a mercurial story that should have gone better for all parties involved. Even worse is that Dorsey told Maclin of his release by voicemail. Maclin went on to play for the Ravens for one more season before calling it a career.

13. J.J. Birden

Coming in at No. 15 overall on the Chiefs' all-time receiving yards list is J.J. Birden, a player who is perhaps more resilient than anyone else on this list.

While he was blessed with impressive speed, Birden, who stands 5'7", was always perceived as someone too small to stand up to the physical challenges of the sport. He was forced to walk on to the Oregon football team in the mid-'80s, and the Cleveland Browns took a flyer on him in the eighth round of the 1988 NFL Draft thanks to the bullish beliefs of then-head coach Marty Schottenheimer.

Injuries delayed his development a bit, and a short stint with Dallas was also a step taken, but Birden eventually landed with the Chiefs after Schottenheimer was made head coach. From there, he put up solid numbers of 183 catches for 2,819 yards and 14 touchdowns from 1990 to 1994, part of the vaunted offense during the Joe Montana years.

12. Frank Jackson

Few Chiefs fans could likely come up with the name Frank Jackson on the spot, but he's actually one of the more interesting stories on our list.

Jackson ended up having a Hall of Fame career, just not in the lane you might think. Coming into the NFL, he had talents and desires for other pursuits besides the game, so he only gave himself to football for most of his 20s before going on to medical school for a year and then becoming a lawyer. After decades as an attorney, he was inducted into the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Hall of Fame in 2019.

As for football, Jackson moved between halfback and wide receiver and came into his own after the team moved from Dallas to Kansas City. In 1964, he led the Chiefs with 62 catches for 943 and nine touchdowns. He was named an AFL All-Star the following year, the league's Pro Bowl equivalency.

If not for his desire to pursue medical training, the Chiefs might not have left him available in the 1965 expansion draft. Instead, the Miami Dolphins claimed him, and he played with them for two more seasons in 1967-68.

11. Willie Davis

Willie Davis can be found going to work every day for the Kansas City Chiefs front office as a senior personnel executive these days, and perhaps that's because he knows as well as anyone the value of a general manager and his team doing their due diligence to unearth potential talent.

Davis himself was a former undrafted-free-agent find out of Central Arkansas in 1991 who turned into an effective downfield threat for the Chiefs in the early '90s. While his rookie season was spent on the team's practice squad, he led the NFL in yards per reception in his second season (21.0) with a blistering 756 total yards on only 36 catches. He followed that up with a career-high 909 yards in his third year with Joe Montana under center.

With 4,503 total receiving yards over eight seasons with the Chiefs and Oilers, Davis put together a solid career. His accomplishments leave him just outside K.C.'s top 10 receivers ever.

10. Chris Burford

One year after leading all college football players in both receptions and receiving yards, Chris Burford went from a captain on a miserable Stanford team (five wins total in his final two years) to the AFL, where the Dallas Texans (later Chiefs) selected him in the ninth round.

Burford had an impressive 789 yards during his rookie season—fifth in the AFL's inaugural year—and put up over 5,500 yards before all was said and done, averaging 688 yards per year over eight seasons as the Chiefs' most consistent pass-catcher in their first decade as a team.

Not only is he a member of the Chiefs Ring of Honor and the College Football Hall of Fame, but you can impress your friends with a nice bit of trivia by reminding them Burford scored the first touchdown in Chiefs history.

9. Derrick Alexander

The Chiefs pulled out the checkbook and turned some heads on a national level when they were able to convince a very good Derrick Alexander to join them in free agency in 1998. Alexander was a prized wideout in his prime who'd just put up consecutive 1,000-yard seasons with the Baltimore Ravens.

The Chiefs had his former Michigan teammate at quarterback in Elvis Grbac, and with Andre Rison fading into his 30s, Alexander was the big target the team wanted to place alongside Tony Gonzalez in the passing attack.

Alexander played well for the Chiefs in his first two years with an average of 912 yards before truly breaking through in 2000 with 1,391 receiving yards—the most in franchise history until Tyreek Hill set a new mark in 2018. His 61.4 yards per game are third in Chiefs history behind Hill and Kelce, and it's important to note he never fumbled one time in his four seasons.

His total of 3,685 yards is 11th all-time among pass-catchers.

8. Eddie Kennison

It took some time for Eddie Kennison to find a long-term home in the NFL. Fortunately, there's never a shortage of teams willing to take a chance on game-changing speed.

Kennison entered the NFL as a 1996 first-round pick of the Rams out of LSU, where he ran the 40-yard dash in times of 4.28 and 4.32 seconds at his pro day. Those sorts of numbers will always earn you a look, so even as nagging injuries changed the Rams' perceptions of him, teams like the Saints and Bears were interested enough to trade for him time and again.

In his sixth season in the NFL, Kennison was in the first of a two-year deal with the Denver Broncos when he asked for his release. At the time, he said his heart wasn't in the game due to ongoing family issues, but one month later, he signed a two-year deal with the Chiefs. He went on to play six more years with the team.

Kennison averaged 961 yards in his first five full seasons in K.C., giving the team a proven vertical threat to pair with Tony Gonzalez in the intermediate passing game. His 5,230 receiving yards also still rank 10th on the team's all-time leaderboard.

If anything, Kennison is a reminder that a player's story might not be over after all.

7. Henry Marshall

Few wide receivers can match the productive longevity put up by Henry Marshall from 1976 to 1987. For the franchise, it was a long and fairly miserable stretch, but Marshall proved himself to be a reliable pass-catcher for the Chiefs in that span.

Marshall might be sitting a bit lower than expected for a player who is No. 6 on the Chiefs' all-time receiving yards list with 6,545. Certainly, he deserves plenty of credit for his durability and consistency, but it's also hard for him to match the dynamism of other players who logged fewer seasons with the team.

Such is the subjective nature of a list like this. Marshall definitely warrants a mention as one of the best wideouts in team history, but just where can be difficult to determine.

6. Stephone Paige

Stephone Paige knows a thing or two about putting together a big game.

In the 1982 California Bowl, when he was a star wideout for the Fresno State Bulldogs, his 246 receiving yards against Bowling Green set an NCAA record for most yards in a bowl game. Three years later, he set an NFL record in '85 with 309 receiving yards against the Chargers on only eight receptions—a record that stood for a regulation game until Calvin Johnson's 329-yard effort 28 years later.

Paige sits at No. 6 on this list for more than just single-game heroics, however.

He was with the Chiefs for nine seasons after signing as a rookie free agent. For an undrafted player, he was able to last through coaching and personnel changes in a career that ultimately reached 6,341 receiving yards—eighth on the all-time list for the Chiefs.

5. Carlos Carson

It's too bad that the '80s are a forgotten decade for Kansas City Chiefs fans because that means the impact of Carlos Carson has been largely overlooked.

Carson played for the Chiefs from 1980-89 after the team drafted him out of LSU in the fifth round. From there, his deep speed became a consistent threat in the Kansas City offense for a full decade—one of the few positives on a team mired in mediocrity.

With a team-leading average of 18.1 yards per reception, Carson finished his career with 6,360 receiving yards—currently seventh on the Chiefs' all-time list. With two Pro Bowls to his credit, he was also one of the lone Chiefs of the entire decade to register on a larger level.

Upon his retirement, Carson's three seasons of 1,000 yards were a team record until Tony Gonzalez came along.

4. Dwayne Bowe

Apart from giving a generation of Chiefs fans the best fantasy football team names possible, Dwayne Bowe also provided the team with its most talented wide receiver in years (and, really, decades) when Scott Pioli submitted his name in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft.

Bowe set Chiefs rookie records as a freshman wideout with 70 catches and 995 yards, and he did so while catching said passes from Damon Huard and Brodie Croyle. He somehow crossed the 1,000-yard threshold in three of the next four seasons with the same questionable talents under center—catching more passes from Huard and Croyle, as well as Tyler Thigpen, Quinn Gray, Matt Cassel, Tyler Palko, Kyle Orton, and Brady Quinn.

The fact that Bowe ranks fourth all-time on the Chiefs' receiving yards list with 7,155 while playing through such misery at quarterback makes it easy to wonder "what if?" on his behalf. However, he wasn't without his issues (some drops, some suspensions), and the Chiefs rewarded him financially for his efforts with an albatross of a contract at the end of his run.

3. Dante Hall

It might feel weird putting a wide receiver with less than a quarter of Bowe's total receiving yards in front of him, but Dante Hall, as Chiefs Kingdom will already know, was much more than just a wide receiver. Technically this is the position to place him in any sort of rankings, but the Human Joystick was one of the NFL's truly great returners—not only for his era but at any point in league history.

Hall joined the Chiefs as a fifth-round choice out of Texas A&M in the 2000 NFL Draft and went on to play seven seasons in Kansas City. It took two years for him to find his footing at the pro level, but once he did, few players could electrify Arrowhead like Hall waiting on a catch.

For those who weren't given the gift of watching Hall on special teams in real-time, it's hard to describe the sense of heightened anticipation with each punt or kick returned.

Hall was a two-time All-Pro and two-time Pro Bowler as the Chiefs' primary returner and was named as the primary punt returner on the NFL All-'00s team. He's one of 12 players with a kick return and punt return for a touchdown in the same game, and he also held a streak with four games in a row with a touchdown return.

Alongside his incredible special teams value and 11 total touchdowns via returns, Hall also caught 162 passes for 1,747 yards and another nine touchdowns for the Chiefs as a receiver.

2. Otis Taylor

Some longtime Chiefs fans are likely still getting used to seeing Otis Taylor somewhere other than the top spot on the team's wide receiver rankings because he was the first truly great wideout in team history who remained the best despite plenty of competition over the years from players aiming to top his many franchise records.

A fifth-round pick out of Prairie View A&M in 1965, Taylor led the Chiefs in total receiving yards for decades with 7,306 until Tony Gonzalez passed him 30 years later. Even today, his mark still stands for wideouts in Chiefs history, and his remarkable 17.8 yards per catch shows how dangerous he could be with the ball on any given play.

Taylor was a three-time Pro Bowler who still owns several other wide receiver records, including most touchdowns (57) and 100-yard games (20). And his most memorable just happens to be a big touchdown catch that helped put away the favored Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV—the team's first championship.

1. Tyreek Hill

Several years ago, acclaimed sportswriter Peter King sat down with Sean Payton for a discussion of several facets of the NFL and asked him about the league's most dangerous player. At the time, Payton turned to his quarterback in the background to answer for him, and Drew Brees simply said two words: "Tyreek Hill".

That was 2018, when Hill was in his third season and just stepping into the national conversation as a well-rounded wide receiver. Of course, Payton, Brees, and anyone else on the inside was already well aware of Hill's game-breaking ability.

Few players can coast on their natural strengths at the highest levels, but Hill could have done just that as a returner/receiver for the Chiefs. Instead, he took to coaching and put in the hard work to turn weaknesses into strengths, becoming a complete wide receiver.

The end result was an incredible transformation into the league's best wide receiver.

Hill has made eight Pro Bowls in his first eight seasons, and if he'd not priced himself out of K.C. in a shocking turn of the marketplace in '22, he'd own every record belonging to Otis Taylor and others. Instead, he came up just short on franchise all-time lists after six years. While it's tough to see him dominating with the Dolphins, no one in Chiefs Kingdom will ever forget the joys and thrills of watching Hill play for K.C.

The 10 best wide receivers in Chiefs history by receptions