The Kansas City Chiefs know they’ll be without wide receiver Rashee Rice for the rest of the season, but adding DeAndre Hopkins into the fold at the trade deadline helped offset that a bit. With the AFC playoff picture coming into focus, there’s also a growing chance that another wideout gets on the field for the back-to-back Super Bowl champs.

Per a Sunday morning report from Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown is putting in “excellent work in rehab” and “should prove sooner rather than later that his first season with the Chiefs is far from over.”

A week removed from a previous update from another outlet on Brown’s recovery after his sternoclavicular injury, Rapoport shed some more light on exactly when he could make a return.

“Marquise ‘Hollywood’ Brown, the electric wide receiver who was among the biggest acquisitions of the 2024 offseason, is expected back soon from his preseason shoulder injury, and sources say it’s likely that he plays before the regular season ends,” Rapoport wrote. “Brown has an appointment in Week 15 with his surgeon to potentially gain final clearance, per sources. At that point, if all goes as well as it has been, he’s expected back on the practice field and could even play in Weeks 16 or 17.”

Prior to Week 12’s play, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports struck an optimistic tone regarding Brown’s recovery and said he could play “as early as Christmas.” That would be Kansas City’s Week 17 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, which could have postseason seeding implications.

The reigning champs play three games spanning from December 15 to Christmas Day. Could the team handle Brown’s return similarly to how it did with Isiah Pacheco and Charles Omenihu? After designating both players to return, the Chiefs held them out of Week 12’s game against the Carolina Panthers and activated them for Black Friday’s win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Letting Brown practice heading into Week 16’s outing against the Houston Texans on December 21 would protect him from the gauntlet and allow for a Week 17 return or a cameo in the regular-season finale.

In either event, the outlook on Brown being so positive is nothing but a good thing for Kansas City. Head coach Andy Reid has consistently provided updates on his progress, but seeing an appointment date set and a return timeline floated adds new context to the situation. For a Chiefs offense that needs all the help it can get, it’s looking more and more likely that a former first-round pick will have a chance to impact the three-peat push.

Slowly but surely, Kansas City is getting healthy entering the most important weeks of the NFL calendar.