I've been very vocal about my discontent with the Skyy Moore pick at the time and during the easy, and I feel partially vindicated by his lack of production last year. However, when Moore was in there he was almost always open and he flashed the few opportunities he had.


That being said, I hated the Rice pick even worse. They traded up for a player that's likely there if they waited and may have been there in the 3rd. and if not, there were better options. I'd be surprised if he finishes his rookie contract. WRs that can't get open and have bad hands generally don't last long in the league. You want a comp for Rice? Jehu Chesson. The Chiefs moved up for him too and he lasted one year. Similar scouting reports.

So of the two? Moore is an NFL WR. He can be a productive one IMO. Rice.

Oh dude.

Total re-run take. Every single thing you've said here is wrong.

Guys who consistently make tough, contested catches don't have "bad hands." He has some focus drops. That can easily be fixed.

Holy shit you're absolutely clueless.

Rice’s style of play seems like he’s gonna need to be schemed open like Juju was. The one concern with him for me was getting open consistently in the NFL.

Still like the pick but those are the concerns for me.

thoughts on his reps here? QB at fault or poor route running?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQNxWubJTu8

Which part? My opinion that Rice = Jehu Chesson or Moore will have a better career than Rice, who will be off the team in three years. Those are opinions and won't be proven this year.

About the speed and separation? Those thoughts are not just my own but shared by many scouting reports.

What about the hands? The ain't good bro.

"Here are some numbers comparing Rice to some of the other members of this draft class. If you eliminate things like swing passes and screens, and look at targets more than 4 yards down the field, it’s clear Rice has unreliable hands. His drop rate is north of 10% in those situations, his on-target catch rate is below 80%, his overall catch rate is below 50%."

https://drafttime.substack.com/p/rashee-rice-wr-smu

You chose to attack because disagree with me instead of providing a logical argument against my opinion or in support of yours. You have the emotional intelligence of a slug.

Kollmans really over rated imo. Kcsn had him on every week and he’d spend the whole pod explaining that kc had no chance because the other team had a better. Ore talented roster. Poor guy never could wrap his head around Mahomes and Andy. There’s no quantifiable stat and it just kept ****ing burning his ass. Now he’s on the chargers pay roll. So I give zero shits what he thinks about the chiefs.

I hope rices hands are as much a ball magnet as his thread is a reerun magnet.

There are no real numbers there. They are measuring his performance by eliminating passes they didn't want to grade him on. How do they even come up with the over all catch rate of 50%? If his drop rate is 10 percent and his on target rate is 80 how does that math work?

Made a big return in the AFC title game & scored in the super bowl what a ****ing bust

Like the pick. Very similar to JuJu in stature. Hoping he brings similar results soon. Learning Reid's route tree will take him awhile. Hopefully having Nagy as OC (vs EB) will play to his advantage in assimilating to the Chiefs' offense.

The punt return was a nice play, and the TD catch was all Andy Reid.

Moore had one of the most disappointing seasons I can remember. There were times where it clearly looked like he didn't understand where he was supposed to be on the field. He cause 2 interceptions, and could barely field a punt. When he was waiting on the punt in the SB, my guess is most Chiefs fans said a silent prayer begging him not to fumble.

Just because he made a play in the SB doesn't erase how poorly he played all season. I initially hated the pick, and after listening to staylor and meck, I decided that he was a great fit for the offense. The reality is that going from lesser college competition to the NFL, and learning Reid's offense, was a real struggle for him.

But, he was a rookie, and with Mahomes at QB, I feel confident he will be much better next season. But you just can't act like he played well last season based on a single play.

As long as Rice isn't Tyreek Hill where every dropped pass results in an interception, I'm ok with it. I feel like Hill had 10 drops that resulted in interceptions. Love him as a player, wish he was still here, but yeah that was maddening.

Replay the tape at half-speed.


Broadly, Rice is inconsistent about his releases. Some of that is intentional; he isn't a Jerry Rice type of route-runner where every release is identical. He's more like, well DHop, where he mixes up his footwork on his releases. He just gets sloppy at times.

Quick example from the tape: In the first couple reps at the snap Rice's feet get wide, but he's not really going forward. Fundamentally, a WR wants to eat up the space between himself and the DB as rapidly as possible. Instead Rice gets wide immediately and allows the DB time and space to get ready when he finally gets going forward.

But then in the next few reps he seems to clean that up; his releases are much more vertical and attacking on the 45s to either side of the DB, consequently he gets the DB to open his hips and creates more space for the catch on those reps.

The last three reps he fails to get the DB to flip his hips, which is why there's no separation.

The concern is that Rice didn't seem to recognize that the DB hadn't flipped his hips. or if he did, he didn't know what to do about it. Considering Rice's speed/burst, if he doesn't get the DB to flip his hips in those types of situations, he will not be able to win the rep a lot of the time. He needs to improve his precision in those areas.

He runs pretty good stems as far as I can tell. he can physically hold his own if the DB gets handsy. example: He hand-battles well to hold his position up the numbers in the first rep, and then fades nicely to create space as the ball drops over his outside shoulder. He's not going to get bullied. Getting bullied was Christian Watson's problem for the first half of the season last year.

Rice tracks and catches with his hands well. He does let the ball get into his chest or shoulders too much.

The QB in this tape was late a couple of times, off-target at least twice.

So he sometimes runs good routes and sometimes he doesn't. He's got plenty of skills, just needs some coaching and polish.

Someone with more technical knowledge could get into the nitty-gritty, but fundamentally that's what i saw watching it twice.

He doesn't seem to have a lot of suddenness to his breaks or movements when he tries to manipulate the defender. I think coaching will definitely help him with improving his route running.

At this point though, he just needs to learn the playbook , and if he can get to where he is supposed to be, then Mahomes will do the rest. And hopefully by the time camp starts, Skyy Moore will also have learned where he is supposed to be.

He shows plenty of pop in some of his releases. So I'm pretty sure he's wasting some steps. When you don't have all-world speed every single step is critical and requires a lot of precision. Waste one or two and the DBs in the NFL will catch up most of the time. The great ones will throw a blanket over your head and beat you about the head and shoulders with their packages.

But when he gets it right he creates enough separation. He just needs to get a degree in route-running.

I should also mention that the DB grabbed Rice several times in those reps. Would've been flagged for sure at least 4 times, I think. If he doesn't hold like that, Rice would've had a lot more sep on those reps.

Literally each part.

Your comp is Jehu Chesson; but Rice is also a direct physical comp to Deandre Hopkins and Brandon Aiyuk. So why did you pick Chesson? Because you read a scouting report that doesn't like Rice and went with that. By the way, many of the same criticisms of Rice were also the criticisms people had for Hopkins and Aiyuk. Inconsistent route running, primarily. There's some slop there that he can get away with in college that he's going to need to clean up in the NFL. But you know, that's why he went #55 overall and not #5. It's not that he CAN'T run routes; he sometimes does, and he sometimes wastes steps on tape. His RAS explosion grades would indicate that with more discipline there he'll be fine.

When you watch, the drops are focus drops. He starts to run before he has the ball sometimes on easy ones. When you watch how he attacks the ball, he does not have bad hands.

Nobody in this class short of Smith-Nigba is close to flawless. But declaring Rice as an out of football in three years guy one day after the draft is asinine.

Moore struggled to get snaps as a rookie, but that was expected in Reid's offense and with 4 veteran WR's in front of him. I'm sure in year two he'll be fine. Rice will probably not get more targets as a rookie than Moore in year two. I have no idea who will ultimately have the better career, but using Moore as an example of a flop, and saying that Rice will be even worse is ****ing stupid.

And I'm not going to argue anymore with you. Your football posts are nearly always negative, and almost always wrong, and you behave like Brett Veach has routinely built 7-9 teams and should be fired, because you clearly are so much better than he is.

You bitch after the fact, but have you ever popped into the draft forum and put your analysis on the line beforehand? Nope. Just complain afterwards and cherrypick scouting reports to be a jerk.

I like Rice, you don't. Fine.

You feel vindicated when a draft pick you didn't like didn't do much; I think that says it all right there.

Christian Watson had horrible hands.

Until... he didn't. The second half of last year he looked pretty damn good and was Green Bay's most reliable receiving threat.

The "He doesn't have good hands!" stat is utter bullshit and should never be a dealbreaker if a WR has other great things going for him.

But... production!

NUMBERS!!!!!!

What round do you think Sky Moore would've went in this year's draft?

2nd as well. This was a weaker WR class and in general.

Cool thanks. I just curious to how him and Rice compared as prospects. As in terms of overall draft value rather than the difference in the players/styles themselves.

So what's out expectations for Rice? Are we gonna do this whole song and dance again?

Expectations?

If you're talking just from a non-stat point....I just want him to not look completely lost on the field.

Stat wise? I'd probably put him at around 400 yards and 4-5 TDs. People will bitch and moan that he wasn't out there putting up 1000 yard seasons or scoring 15 TDs. I think he'll have a better rookie year than Skyy Moore just because of his skillset.

If he has 400 yards and 4 TD's I'd consider that a huge win.

Moore's grasp of the system will be what determines how much production we get from Rice.

If Moore really did just have a 1st year 'red shirt' process where he needed to learn the system, he should be ahead of Rice and should be able to come in and get a lot of the reps/looks that JJSS left behind.

If Moore just doesn't have it, you'll see Rice get a lot of reps early and eventually take over that spot.

But with the addition of Toney to the room (vs. last August) as well as James coming in as a veteran receiver w/ experience in the system, Rice will have to force the issue to get reps. And the reps he gets between the 20s likely come at Moore's expense. If Moore is playing well - he won't get many.

I think at this point I'm more inclined to view Moore/Rice as a single entity and say that between the 2 I think we ought be able to get 1,000 yards. If that's 700 from Moore plus 300 from Rice - okay. That's fine. MVS, Toney and James can get 2,000 between the 3 of them, IMO and then Kelce gets his 1K+ w/ the RBs getting another 5-600.

This group can support another 5K yard passing season.

I really think that they're splitting Juju's snaps into two spots. Rice is going to take all of those outside snaps and Moore is going to work from the slot. MVS will be the deep threat and Toney is who they'll move around a ton.

Which is why I just never felt the urgency to go ham replacing JJSS. He just shouldn't be terribly hard to replace.

A combination of Moore/Rice should be able to do so fairly easily. James backfills for the production of Moore/Hardman in their roles last season and you're at/above where you were last year, ESPECIALLY if MVS and Mahomes can develop a little more chemistry and Toney can give us even 12 healthy games.

This is a solid group. Not the best in the league but in the middle 1/3 somewhere, IMO.

It wouldn't shock me to see James suck up alot of yards and snaps here. I'm not sure where Rice ultimately fits in at this point, but he's gonna be the outside guy so I'm kinda thinking they view him in the mold of a Sammy Watkins and Moore more of an inside guy.

I'm curious to see what they do with the RB room at this point.

Exactly. With the addition of James and Rice, I'm not as worried as I was before.

I think for all the talk about Hyatt....we'd be sitting here trying to figure out where he would be getting snaps as a deep threat. He would have just been a replacement for MVS next year. I like Rice's fit better in this offense.

Moore and Rice are so distinct as prospects that if you hated BOTH of them, there's just no pleasing you.

I didn't like Moore - I like Rice a LOT. Because they just do different things and have different body types and win in different ways. If you can't stomach EITHER of them, you're essentially demanding that every guy we draft is Julio Jones or you're going to hate them.

There has to be some room for being satisfied even if it's not exactly the pick you'd have made. If it's "Veach needs to substitute my judgment for his or he's an idiot..." then there's really no point in following the draft because it's just going to piss you off.

You gotta figure Justin Watson is gonna end up being higher in line than Rice atleast early in the year.

And there's always another Hyatt.

You need a replacement for MVS next year? Cool - look for him next year. In the meantime, you've taken a guy in Rice that can anchor your WR group as a set and forget X receiver relatively quickly. With Moore in the Y role and Toney as the Z. You need a burner - find one in 2024.

As I think about it, it's very similar to the Karlaftis pick. We didn't take a speed rusher last year because we wanted an anchor at the SDE role. And there is only so much draft capital available to you. So last year we took the SDE and that's an underappreciated and difficult role to fill. This year we took the bendier guy we can get speed from the other bookend from.

We just did the same thing at WR. X is an underappreciate role and not an easy one to fill in this scheme. We took a guy we think can do that while we have a veteran who can hold down the speed role for now (MVS). Next year we can go ahead and make a more concerted effort at a long-term speed player.

And it may simply not be necessary if Toney is what I think he can be.

DJ, how do you feel about Rice's splits in man vs. zone? I found that a tad bit concerning, even though I don't think it's a big deal by any means.

Feels like if there's another Hyatt or even Mims sitting there in round 2 next year, he'll probably be a Chief.

This.

And it makes the offense more dangerous. We spread the ball around so much last year that we just ended up killing everybody’s 3rd corners and 2nd LB’s. Mixing and matching a variety of coverages with different types of players really made it hard for defenses to do anything but play zone, which Patrick destroys.

As long as Rice is a nice role player who catches the ball and makes some plays I’m happy. It’s gonna come down to his chemistry with Patrick. Hardman struggled with it, Skyy struggled with it. Hope Rice gets that connection down early.

I will say this, for all the talk about bad hands and shit, Rice's QB play was awful. I'd imagine that has a lot to do with some of the "drops" he was credited with.

There's a reason he's constantly having to make acrobatic catches and those where he has to turn his body around. Ball placement is almost always off.

I think we might really love James by the end of the season.

His catch rate was ridiculous last season. All we ever ask for from that 4th/5th WR is to be reliable. Even better if they can occasionally have a big game.

Guys like Demarcus Robinson could have the occasional big game, but you couldn’t count on them to not **** things up occasionally.

I think that signing may be one that is sneaky good.

I noticed that some of the plays he did make in man were SUPER difficult catches. I think beating man requires such good timing/precision from your QB that when you have bad QB play (and man did Rice have bad QB play last season) it's really hard to know how well you actually did it.

The measurables don't point to someone who can't beat man, nor does the will - he absolutely plays big and battles for the ball. But when you've got a guy missing his mark by 4-5 feet and throwing the ball late out of your cut, you really can't demonstrate it very well.

I think he'll be okay there. Do I think he'll be a short area monster? Not at all. Nor do I think the Chiefs expect that. But I think he'll be a guy who can catch a ball quickly against man and use his physicality at/after the catch point to turn those into big 1st downs.

Yeah, I'm a James fan. He was one of the guys I was saying we should be going after during the 2nd wave of FA. He's a solid ballplayer and coming from Kafka for a year, he should be up to speed sooner than most.

I think we can pencil him in for 600 yards and not be too far off. He can really contribute, IMO.

I want to say that most of the hate with this pick is because people are locked onto this whole WR1 thing. They want that alpha WR that is going to soak up 120 targets a season. That's not happening in this offense....at least not now. Kelce is your alpha and will be until he slows down. This team just proved that you don't need a true WR1 to have a high scoring offense.

Agreed, check my other post too, I think the QB play had a lot to do with the perceived negatives in his game.

I saw quite a few drops where the ball was behind him or something and he's trying to make a difficult catch. Then he probably gets credited with a "drop".

Depends on Toney. If they think they can use Toney on those routes, I think we'll be looking more at the 3rd/4th round and a guy like Trey Palmer this year who slides.

All I know is that the Justyn Ross stans are going to be pissed when he doesn't make the roster because I'm seeing a WR group that has MVS, Toney, Moore, Rice, James and Watson.

Was that chart counted when he had his toe injury bc that injury changed everything for him. He toughed through it but damn

He's going to have to earn a spot. That's for sure. Not going to be easy at all.

He doesn't play STs AFAIK, so he's going to have an uphill battle.

So if James has a great year and goes for 700-800 yards and 5 TDs.....do you look or think about an extension? Or is it just "on to the next".

One thing that may help his chances a bit is that it looks like the Chiefs won't be keeping a FB this year.

Wonder if they'll use Bell or Grey in some of those situations.

I'm still not 100% certain Watson makes this team. Wasn't going into the draft and am not convinced he will now.

Ross will have a chance to take that job away from him.

As anything, depends on the money.

He just HAD a decent year where he went for about 600 yards and didn't generate much of a market. I don't mind trying that again this off-season and if he can get $5-6 million/yr on the market I'd probably move on.

But if you lose him and MVS next season, that's a lot of knowledge in the system that leaves with them and all but demands you retain Watson at that point.

Depends on what the demands are. Much like JJSS. I like him at sub 5M per. I don't really like him >5M per

How do you know this? Did all of the GMs in the league have him rated as a 3rd rounder? Also do you think Andy agrees with your assessment? Why did word get out the Mahomes threw to other WRs, yet nothing about Rice? There is a ton of speculation in your post with no basis in reality.

I don't know that we raised the bar on WR position heading in to this year, but I think we definitely raised the floor.

That should likely be enough with Mahomes running the show.

I mean, no different than last year, but injuries can really **** us in the ass.

Just noticed Rice had the 3rd best 10 yard time at the combine among WR’s at 1.49. Last year Skyy Moore had an elite 10 yard time of 1.46.

That explosion off the line certainly means a lot to Veach

So, last season we had to deal with a certain poster bitching constantly about Karlaftis because he preferred someone else with that pick. Are we looking at the same situation with EMAW1979 this year about Rice? We know that Andy doesn't use rookie wide receivers very much. So, when it's game 9 and Rice isn't on pace for 1500 yards is this guy gonna be screaming that Hyatt would have been better?

Yea, I noticed that too. Seems like they care even more about that than the 40 for WRs (unless they're looking for a true burner).

I'm just happy his last name is Rice. :thumb:

I would say they just don't seem to care about late separation guys, I wonder if the lack of urgency on picking a guy like Pickens shows the same. But then they also didn't seem fussed about contested catch guys and based on his 2022 film that seems one of Rice's plus attributes.

I have a hard time evaluating Rice. Early on in the draft process I listed him as a top 5 receiver in this class. The longer I watch him though, the more I get N’keal Harry vibes. Rashee is definitely a faster athlete than Harry but their college tape is eerily similar with how they dominate jump ball and back shoulder throw scenarios. My main worry is Rice’s ability to create separation vs man coverage. I think early on he’ll be an asset vs zone, but his biggest question mark will be beating 1 on 1’s vs man when teams want to double Kelce/Toney.

Very interested to see how our 2nd round receivers pan out this season.

Now the chiefs need to go out and get a WR with the last name BEANS

I just don't think this WR class was very good overall. I was very confident in Skyy, and we all know how he came along last year. Rice will be our Terry Mclaurin if this works out well for us. If not he's a jump ball guy who sits on the bench.

Now all those hill-running vids make sense

Yep.

By production, NFL had him rated as the 8th best WR in the draft. His athletic testing was 6th in the class.

His composite rating (those two combined) was THIRD.

This was a very good pick.

Those N'Keal Harry vibes lead me to predict Drake London being a bust and welp.

So he has bad hands and can’t separate? Chiefs fans are reeruned

FYP

If you were pining to keep JJSS and you don't like this pick, i'm not sure what to do with you. This guy can do everything JuJu did except he's a little faster, a little more explosive and doesn't come with the injury baggage.

The Chiefs needed a workhorse WR. A big bodied guy who who can develop into a full time snap eater and be productive underneath. Andy has always had one.

Toney, Ritchie, Moore...MVS....none of them are that guy.

Which is why i wasn't sold on the smaller, shiftier guys being the Chiefs selection, as much of a fan i am of that type.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here is one of the newest <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chiefs</a> WR Rashee Rice vs Maryland last year. <a href="https://t.co/hGivpXYQHV">pic.twitter.com/hGivpXYQHV</a></p>&mdash; Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jacobs71/status/1652338923467689992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Wow, he looks terrible. He can't catch and he can't get space. Just awful. LMAO

Ever wanna know what someone means by 'body control' you can just watch that clip.

It's not just NFL caliber but top tier NFL caliber. Few NFL receivers can do what he's doing there.

one thing to keep in mind is that Maryland really didn't press him. They showed man/press, but hardly ever put their hands on him. They will in the NFL.

But yeah, he looks pretty good in the tape.

We saw that from Moore a handful of times last year, too. These guys can really snatch the ball out of the air. I like it.

I like the consistency in his stats from college.

Last year, only 2 games under 70 yards. Still managed 10 catches between those games.

6 100+ yard games. Minimum of 3 catches every week. 6+ catches in 10 games. 24 TDs over his last 3 seasons. Had more catches each season than the previous season.

Honestly outside of Veach catching lightning in a bottle, KC will need to accept the reality that this offense will be built around an elite QB and solid, yet not elite receivers (Kelce being the exception). Thankfully they have some experience with that last year.