Fantasy Football Takeaways: Patrick Mahomes Needs Another Passing Threat | Can Rashee Rice Be That Player?
The Kansas City Chiefs earned their fifth consecutive win when they defeated the Denver Broncos 19-8 on Thursday night.
In what set up as an extremely good matchup for the Chiefs’ offense, the unit only scored one touchdown. It was the Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce show, as the duo had another big night, but the offense stalled several times in the red zone.
In order for the Chiefs to reach their end goal of repeating as champions, they are going to need another pass catcher to step up. Fantasy owners are wondering who that might be, so let’s try to figure that out.
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Mahomes and Kelce Lead Way
Kansas City’s offense racked up 389 total yards of offense on the night despite only scoring 19 points. A lot of the damage was done by Mahomes and Kelce.
Mahomes targeted Kelce nine times, and the tight end caught all nine passes for 124 yards, with a long gain of 40. The 124 yards accounted for just under half of Mahomes’ 306 passing yards. Mahomes also ran six times for an additional 31 yards.
Outside of Kelce, no other Chiefs player really had great nights.
Kadarius Toney caught Mahomes' only touchdown, but finished with just three grabs and 9 yards on six targets. Toney’s two rushes went for negative-5 yards.
Running back Isiah Pacheco had an extremely favorable matchup, but was limited to 62 rushing yards on 16 carries. He did catch all six of his targets for 36 yards to add some more fantasy points for the owners who started him. Overall though, it was a pretty underwhelming final line given the favorable matchup.
Running back Jerick McKinnon was targeted five times, catching three passes for only 20 yards. Wideout Skyy Moore caught half of his four targets for just 22 yards. Backup tight end Noah Gray finished with two grabs on as many targets for 14 yards. Backup running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire tallied 16 total yards on three touches.
Outside of Kelce and Pacheco, the only other Kansas City player over 30 total yards was rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice. I think he has the best chance to turn into a difference maker, so I’m going to single his play out.
Rice Starting to Emerge?
Rice finished with a solid final statline of four catches on as many targets for 72 yards. That seems like a solid showing for an offense’s third option, but there’s still some doubt as to if he can consistently be that guy for the team’s offense.
One thing that scares me regarding Rice possibly emerging as a reliable option for KC and a solid fantasy asset is that he played only 35 offensive snaps. That accounted for under 50% of the team’s total.
Rice has only one game in which he played over 50% of the team’s offense snaps, and his percentage that game was 51. It’s hard to consistently be a factor if you’re on the field every other play.
Moore, Gray, Valdes-Scantling, Pacheco and Kelce all saw more snaps than the rookie. Maybe the lower amount of snaps is how KC is going to proceed with Rice this season, but that makes his snaps on the field extremely important, and makes it much tougher to produce quality fantasy outings.
The game in which Rice played 51% of the offensive snaps was his best statistical showing of the season up until Thursday. He had 59 receiving yards on five catches and seven overall targets.
The other four games before last night saw the rookie between 2-4 catches and just 20-33 yards. He did catch a touchdown in two of those games to turn in a decent fantasy score.
The point I’m getting at is that given his limited offensive snaps, Rice’s production is wildly inconsistent. He’s proved a couple times, including Thursday, that he can still deliver a decent point total, but it’ll be hard to confidently start him in typical redraft leagues until his snap counts increase.
There might be weeks where you are forced to start him because of injuries or bye weeks, and you might be rewarded with a decent outing if he has a big catch or two or scores a touchdown, but it’s hard to put him in the starting lineup now and be confident he can do that.
The Road Ahead
While the decision of whether or not to play Rice is going to be a difficult one, you won’t have to worry about him taking on defenses that excel in stopping opposing wideouts.
Kansas City plays the Los Angeles Chargers in week 7, Broncos again in week 8, Miami Dolphins in week 9 and then Philadelphia Eagles in week 11 after a bye week.
The matchups are good ones to try to take advantage of, but until Rice starts playing over 60% of the offensive snaps consistently, I won’t feel great about playing him.
I'm sure we'll cover Rice in start/sit discussions in the weeks to come, so keep en eye out for those.
