Kansas City Chiefs receiver’s shoulder injury requires surgery, IR stint

The Chiefs will be without wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown for an extended period.

Brown will undergo surgery Monday to repair a dislocated sternoclavicular (SC) joint, which connects the sternum to the clavicle at the base of the neck. The Chiefs are placing Brown on the NFL’s injured reserve list, meaning he will miss at least four games, but Andy Reid said Friday it would be “months not weeks.”

Brown sent a message through his X/twitter account:

“Disappointed, frustrated and Sad was the first wave of emotions once I realized I would need surgery but that only lasted a day or so because of my Faith in God.”

Brown suffered the injury on the first play of the Chiefs’ preseason opener at Jacksonville on Aug. 10 — he was tackled after making a reception.

Chiefs trainer Rick Burkholder said Brown was trending toward a return in the early part of the season.

“He was doing great in rehab and he was having no pain,” Burkholder said. “We were discussing return to play opportunities.”

But a final check, a month from the injury and three weeks from the MRI, indicated the bone had moved. The Chiefs consulted with multiple physicians and a specialist.

“Everybody thought it was a litle too risky for him to play without having this operated on,” Burkholder said.

Surgery is scheduled for Monday in Vail, Colo.

“We’ll go from there,” Burkholder said. “Obviously there is no timeline.”

But Reid said “it’s not going to be weeks, more like months. We’ll see where that takes us.”

This is Brown’s sixth season in the NFL. He spent his first three with the Baltimore Ravens, where in 2019 he caught 91 passes for 1,008 yards. He spent the last two with the Arizona Cardinals before signing a one-year free-agent contract with the Chiefs this past offseason.

The Chiefs’ wide receiver upgrades continued in the 2024 NFL Draft with the selection of Xavier Worthy from Texas in the first round. Worthy flashed his skills with a receiving and rushing touchdown in his NFL debut last week as the Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens 27-20.

“I think we have good guys at that spot, some depth there,” Reid said. “We feel good there.”