Second-year wide receiver Rashee Rice has started the 2024 season as the Kansas City Chiefs' top pass catcher, racking up 24 catches for 288 yards and two touchdowns through KC's first three games of the year. With Rice's production continuing to increase after an impressive rookie campaign, Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy discussed Rice when speaking to the media this week.
On Thursday, Nagy was asked if there was anything that surprised him about the way Rice has taken over as the Chiefs' top target to begin the season.
"No, there's nothing surprising with the way he's come back in," Nagy began. "I think we probably compare it a little bit to last year when he first got here. Remember, we talked about drinking water from a fire hydrant, and he came back right away in OTAs and looked amazing, took it into training camp, looked great, so it's not surprising. It takes a little bit of time, but it's been really cool to see him grow, and I know he has a lot more to go."
Nagy was then asked what the Chiefs saw from Rice before the year that led them to believe that Rice could begin the '24 season at this level.
"The route-running," Nagy said. "Understanding how to get open in zones. He's really good in man. He's physical, we all know what he can do after he catches the ball. He's violent, he likes to get hit. That's rare sometimes at the wide receiver position. But I remember watching a clip of him in college, and he caught a ball, ran a shallow cross right-to-left, and then went down to the goal line inside the five, and it was either try to hurdle two guys that were getting ready to hit him or run them over, and he ran them over and popped their mouthpieces out. So, what he's doing physically right now in the NFL's not surprising. The route-running and learning how to do that — I think instantly back to last year with Travis [Kelce], throughout the year in practice, during our special teams periods, Travis would pull him over and they'd talk through things, and I think he understood it, but he didn't know how to do it. Now, he's seeing it, has a year, and now he knows how to do it."
What would Kelce teach Rice as the then-rookie navigated his first taste of the NFL?
"Just a lot of things," Nagy said. "A lot of good teaching points that Travis has done over the years that is invaluable. It's great when we're teaching them as coaches and we give them our insight, but when the guy that's doing it for a bunch of years, like Trav is, and making it work the way he does, when you're a player and you hear that come from another player that's had success, I think it means a lot. So, watching him now take that into account and do what he's doing from Week 1 until now has been really cool."
