Rashee Rice’s return confirms what Chiefs fans were hoping was true

The Kansas City Chiefs dominated the Las Vegas Raiders 31-0 on Sunday. While the dominant win was greatly appreciated by Chiefs fans, the bigger story when it comes to the long-term success of the team was the return of Rashee Rice. Rice hadn't played a game for the Chiefs in over a year because of a knee injury and a six-game suspension for a high-speed car crash. In his first game back, he proved that he's not just another weapon for Patrick Mahomes, but KC's best weapon and one of the premier playmakers in the NFL.

Rice may have ended the day with only 42 yards receiving, but his 7 receptions and 2 touchdowns led the Chiefs and helped them jump out to an early lead that they would never look back from. Even more importantly, his 10 targets were double the next closest player (which was Brashard Smith). Simply put, in his first game back, Rice showed he's back to being one of the most productive receivers in the NFL.

Rashee Rice continued his elite run even after missing games for a full year.

If you haven't looked closely at Rice's numbers, you might think that calling him KC's clear best weapon or a top-10 wideout in the NFL is hyperbole. It's not. Rice was on an absolute tear to start last season before getting injured. If you combine his three games last season before getting injured with his game Sunday against the Raiders, you get a per-game average of 7.8 receptions, 82.5 yards, and a touchdown. If you expand those numbers over a 17-game season, you get 132 receptions, 1,400 yards, and 17 touchdowns. Those numbers would have ranked 1st, 3rd, and tied for 1st in the NFL last season.

Lots of players have a hot four-game stretch, though, and they rarely keep that pace of production up. So if you don't like extrapolating his last four games out over a season, let's just take the numbers Rice has put up in his last 17 games. If you take his game Sunday, the 3 full games he played last year, KC's 4 playoff games at the end of the 2023 season, and the final 9 games of the 2023 regular season, you get a total of 110 receptions, 1,225 yards, and 9 touchdowns. Those numbers would have ranked 5th, 7th, and tied for 9th last season.

In other words, over his last 17 games played, Rashee Rice has been a top-ten wide receiver already, and his production in the second half of those 17 games is trending upward. There were some questions around how much of Rice's production in previous seasons was more of a result of there not being any other good options at the position. Would the deepest receiver room of Mahomes' career mean fewer targets for Rice upon his return? The answer on Sunday was a resounding no.

That's not to say that KC's other weapons weren't also a key part of the offense. Travis Kelce led the team with 54 yards receiving. Hollywood Brown had a pair of catches and a touchdown. Xavier Worthy had 48 combined yards rushing and receiving. Brashard Smith caught five passes for 42 yards, plus 39 yards rushing. Isiah Pacheco had 57 yards rushing and a touchdown. JuJu Smith-Schuster had 3 catches for 35 yards, and both Tyquan Thornton and Noah Gray had long passes that set up touchdowns.

The Chiefs spread the ball around with tremendous efficiency, but Mahomes still targeted Rashee Rice way more than any other target. That is a signal to Chiefs fans and the rest of the NFL that the best quarterback in football just got his best weapon back. Mahomes has already been back to his highly productive ways this season. Over his last four games (only one of which had Rice on the field), Mahomes is averaging 71.3% completions for 282.75 yards per game with 11 touchdowns and only 1 interception. He's also added 125 yards rushing and 2 rushing touchdowns in that stretch.

So Patrick Mahomes was already back to his MVP-caliber self, and now it appears that he has his most talented weapon back and is ready to pepper him with targets once again. That is a bigger takeaway than the Chiefs demolishing a bad (and injured) Raiders team. It was great to see the Chiefs not play down to an opponent, but if they have added a top-ten receiver to an already explosive offense, that is the top story, and the rest of the NFL should be very concerned.