For all you people asking for Rice to get more targets.
Discuss
So a couple points on this film:
- Slow the playback of the film to 0.25 or 0.5. You’ll see the plays develop much better.
- Rice runs his routes fine. They need work, but they’re not bad enough to be a huge problem. Routes are supposed to get you open in “windows” and separation from defenders is not indefinite. Rice has plenty of open windows on film here.
Also, Mahomes misses a bunch of wide open players. Here are just some of the time stamps I noticed just watching through once:
- Pop at 0:24.
- Rice at 0:32 has inside leverage and Mahomes has him in his read as long as he throws on schedule but he holds.
- Toney at 0:43 is ridiculously open.
- Both Rice and Kelce have good inside leverage at 0:51 but Mahomes understandably goes to Kelce.
- Rice is wide open at 0:59 if Mahomes had just kept him in his sight instead of moving on to his next progression.
- Mahomes has Kelce at 1:07 but instead throws to Watson for an interception.
- Rice at 1:26. Mahomes really could have gone to Rice instead of Watson.
- Kelce at 1:34 is wide fucking open and I have no idea what Mahomes is doing here. This one is really bad.
- Kelce at 2:05 and Mahomes just misses this throw from waiting a touch too long.
- Kelce at 2:59 is far more open than Watson and should be in Mahomes vision.
- Rice at 3:12 but Mahomes just does not go into motion even though Rice is in his progression and Rice has plenty of space.
- Kelce at 3:21 is a good read by Mahomes but the throw is too far in front.
- Rice at 3:40 badly beats his man.
So watching this, I notice Kelce and Rice getting open a bunch of times and Mahomes either waits too long or throws to Watson instead which ends up as either an incompletion or interception a lot.
After first watch, there were some plays where I see why Pat didn’t go to him and others where he should have.
Off the top of my head I remember on his INT to Watson he could have fired that hitch route to Rice down to the 3 or so yard line.
And the next play after that, he was open for about a 9 yard gain over the middle but Pat opted to go to Watson lined up on the outside who couldn’t bring in the inaccurate ball.
I know this is about Rashee Rice but god damn every time pat looks a receiver’s way they’re covered. Just wow.
Yes he needs more snaps because no one else is doing any better (oftentimes worse) and he needs the experience to get better. This proves nothing.
The way I see it, from watching this video, two things can be true at once:
- Rashee absolutely has to get better at creating separation and cutting away from zone that will allow him to get easily bracketed. If he can avoid tackles after the catch, he can definitely create separation to get targets. It’ll take time and practice, which he definitely needs, but I believe he can get it done.
- He’s on a very limited route tree, and that seems to be a symptom of our offense all around in general this season. It feels like we’re asking all of our receivers to be Kelce, even when they’re lined up wide for some reason. While I understand the reluctance to get any of them to stretch the defense because… well, we saw what happened with MVS, I really think we need to expand our play calling.
This is a symptom of Andy’s philosophy that all WRs need to know every position. It’s asinine
Okay I think it’s fine to criticize a coach who is a lock for the HoF, but it just seems to you like Andy can do no right in your eyes lol.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m impatient too and I’d like to see Andy evolve his philosophy while we’re at this crossroads offensively, but I also believe he’s earned enough benefit of the doubt for me to be patient with him.
This is wasting a year of Patrick’s prime, one of Kelce’s last years, the only top 5 defense Patrick has ever had, and the last year of many key young players before free agency. Forgive me for being impatient