Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatron96
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.
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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.