Rashee Rice is already a hidden top‑10 NFL wide receiver for the Chiefs in 2025

The Kansas City Chiefs have had issues finding enough wide receiver production in the past couple of seasons. Due to that fact, some around the NFL may be underestimating just how good KC's Rashee Rice could be for the Chiefs this season. While Rice has flashed elite upside, his injury last season put a damper on his breakout campaign, but he now looks poised for big things in 2025.

In a recent video on "Why the Chiefs offense could explode", Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer mentioned that Rice was looking healthy and that "the Chiefs think that he could be a top 10 receiver in the NFL". Breer mentioned it casually, and it might be easy to brush off as a team simply being optimistic, but I'm not sure most people realize that Rice doesn't need to take a step forward to achieve that goal. He just needs to stay on the field.

Just how good has Rashee Rice already been for the Chiefs?

Rashee Rice started last season on fire before he blew out his knee on a freak play where Patrick Mahomes accidentally hit him after throwing an interception. In his first three games of the season before that injury, Rice put up 24 receptions for 288 yards and 2 touchdowns. If you were to extend that pace for a full 17-game regular season, it would be 136 receptions for 1,632 yards and 11.3 touchdowns. That's not on pace to be a top 10 wideout; that's contending to be WR1 in all the NFL.

Before we get too lofty with our expectations, let's be a little more reasonable. Players frequently go on a hot streak for 2–3 games but don't end up averaging those numbers for a full season. Plus, Hollywood Brown was out with his injury, and Xavier Worthy was still acclimating himself to the NFL, so KC had to lean on Rice more than they would have liked. So it probably isn't fair to look at that three-game pace and expect those numbers for a full season if Kansas City has all three of their top wideouts this season.

What if we instead just look at the last 17 games that Rice has played in the NFL? That would include those 3 games from last season, the last 10 regular-season games of his rookie season, plus KC's 4 playoff games that year. If you add up his receptions, yards, and touchdowns in those 17 games, you get:

• 108 receptions
• 1,243 yards
• 8 touchdowns

Those numbers aren't projections or averages; those are the numbers that Rashee Rice put up over his last 17 games in the NFL. If you're curious where those numbers would have ranked last season:

• 108 receptions would have ranked 6th in the NFL (4th amongst wide receivers).
• 1,243 yards would also have ranked 6th in the NFL.
• 8 receiving touchdowns would have ranked tied for 13th (12th amongst wide receivers).

So, if we go back to Breer's comment that the Chiefs think he can be a top 10 wide receiver in the NFL, that isn't really projecting. If Rice can just stay healthy (and avoid suspension), he has already produced at the level of a top 10 receiver. Yes, he will hopefully be splitting more of the wideout production with Brown and Worthy this season, but the hope is that having multiple productive receivers leads to a bigger overall production to split up.

In Patrick Mahomes’ first five seasons as a starter, he averaged almost 4,800 passing yards per season, including two seasons over 5,000 yards. Last season, he was just over 3,900. If the Chiefs' passing offense can get back to that level of production, Rice can easily hit 108 receptions, 1,200 yards, and 8 touchdowns as KC's number one receiver while still sharing the load with Brown and Worthy. That's especially true with an aging Travis Kelce likely not producing like he was during those 5,000-yard seasons.

All reports from OTAs and minicamp have Rice looking like his old self. Currently, there are no pending suspensions from his speeding/accident/fleeing-the-scene incident. To my knowledge, formal charges have still never been filed from that case, and the NFL has a history of not issuing suspensions until legal issues are resolved. So Rashee Rice looks poised to hit the ground running in 2025—and if that is the case, the Chiefs don't think they have a top 10 wide receiver. They do.