The back-to-back Super Bowl champs appear to be even more lethal this season. With the addition of record-setting speedster Xavier Worthy and the electrifying but oft-injured Hollywood Brown, the Chiefs have weapons to spare on offense.
Rashee Rice has not gone anywhere, either. With legal proceedings still up in the air, it appears the league is waiting to see how things play out before announcing their discipline. In other words, the second-year receiver is primed to explode in 2024.
Fantasy managers cringed as Patrick Mahomes failed to live up to draft expectations in 2023. With an aging Travis Kelce, Rice’s rookie growing pains, and a smorgasbord of mid at wide receiver, it’s no wonder the Chiefs led the NFL with 44 drops.
With a strong defense and a lethal ground game anchored by Isiah Pacheco’s violent running style, the Chiefs needed to retool their receiving room or risk losing their chance to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls.
Xavier Worthy Fantasy Outlook 2024
After running a 4.21 40-yard dash at the combine, there appear to be puffs of smoke still billowing from the bottom of Worthy’s shoes.
Blessed with legendary speed and crisp route-running ability, Worthy is already a perfect pair with Mahomes’ legendary sidearm and Andy Reid’s legendary offensive mind. Don’t just take my word for it, William Schwartz with Pro Football Network was quick to sing Worthy’s praises.
“Expect Worthy to click perfectly in the Chiefs’ offense, inhabiting something similar to the former Tyreek Hill role,” Schwartz writes. “He’s one of the few players in league history with the pure speed to do that, and unlike other recently drafted speedsters like John Ross, he’s displayed a broader skill set than just running fast in a line.”
Has this skillset translated to the field? Will Mahomes give Worthy opportunities on the field? Well, does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?
So far, Worthy has boasted a salivating 17.0 average depth of target (aDot) on his six targets this preseason. He’s hauled in a 39-yard bomb and a beautiful 22-yard wide-open touchdown.
Worthy’s been tormenting opposing secondaries with his speed and innate ability to slither behind opposing secondaries.
Worthy’s 25% target share with Mahomes and heavy route participation already suggest a lucrative role could be in line in 2024. He’s being lined up all over the formation and has an irresistible gravitational pull that sucks defenders to him, opening up the rest of the field for receivers to feast.
Meanwhile, Worthy is a deadly force in the screen game. As Scott Barret pointed out, “46% of his career catches have come on screens (most of any projected top-25 Power 5 WR in this class), and 28% of his career targets have come on deep passes (most of any projected top-10 Power 5 WR in this class).”
That kind of fear and influence on opposing defenses cannot be taken off the field, at least not for long. While fast in his own right, Brown does not possess that degree of influence on defenses.
A Tank Dell type of rookie season for Worthy seems to be well within the cards, even in a crowded offense.
Rashee Rice Fantasy Outlook 2024
The closer to the start of the season, the less likely it is that Rice gets suspended this season. That doesn’t mean there’s no chance it could happen. Drafting him still has baked-in risk. Still, the risk continues to fizzle out as legal proceedings continue to drag out.
Last season, after a promising but inconsistent start to the season, Rice proved to be a league-winning receiver after the Chiefs’ Week 10 bye.
Rice was only pacing for 78 targets and 714 yards to start the season. The signs were there for a post-bye-week breakout, with his snap rate steadily climbing over 50% (59%, 61%, 68%). After the bye, Rice never saw a snap share below 57% and never saw below 75% after week 12.
In other words, Rice had cemented his role on the team, and the pacing numbers back that up.
After the bye, Rice was on pace for 294 PPR points, which would have made him the WR5, ahead of A.J. Brown, DJ Moore, and Mike Evans.
Rice hasn’t missed a beat this preseason. His connection with Mahomes is still as lethal as last season.
So far, Rice has played 94% of his snaps with Mahomes, and he has been targeted on five of his routes.
While the return of Brown to the offense during the season will likely cap some of Rice’s opportunities, his work in the red zone looks fairly secure. In 2023, Rice saw 22 targets inside the 20, including 12 inside the 10.
With Kelce still drawing attention and Worthy essentially providing a black hole effect on opposing defenses, Rice is set up to feast underneath and on designed opportunities next season! At his consensus ADP of WR30, his early seventh-round draft price feels like the steal of the draft.
