The Ringer NFL Show - The Play Sheet [VIDEO]: Rashee Rice Will Save the Kansas City Chiefs

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

The Kansas City Chiefs have had a year to forget when it comes to their WR play. From Kadarius Toney's gut-wrenching drops to Travis Kelce's slight decline this year, Chiefs fans are wondering if their team can make another Super Bowl run. The Ringer's Ben Solak argues that another ring for Patrick Mahomes is still possible this season, given the encouraging play of rookie upstart Rashee Rice. Watch 'The Play Sheet' on YouTube or Spotify every Wednesday at 8 a.m. PT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy. I'm Ben Solac. This is the PlaySheet. This is a weekly episode we do here, and it's a video podcast. We're watching some films. So click in the Spotify app, watch the video and enjoy. The opening script. Chiefs receivers are in trouble, but they're also going to be okay. It has been a bad year to be a Chiefs Receiver. Namely, it's been a bad year to beat Chiefs. Let's review. In Week 1, the Chiefs were going to beat the Lions. But then Cadarius Tony had a bad drop over the middle of the field, and it became a pick six, Brian Branch, now it's a close game. The Chiefs were also, people forget this, in that game in a position to get into game-winning field goal range, and Mahomes hit Cadarious Tony with another pass that was dropped. Later in the season, we had more such nonsense. Marquez-Valdus Scantling, wide-open game-winning touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles in the fourth quarter, hits him in all ten fingers, dropped. Later in that game, fourth and 25, Mahomes' heroics,

a chance to keep the drive alive. Justin drops the pass. And then, of course, the Bills game, in which we all know. what happened in the Bill's game. So this has been a storyline all season. And now here we are. The Chiefs just beat the Patriots last Sunday. They're 9 and 5.

They're in position to win the division now because they're two games up on the Broncos. They're going to be like the three seed. It's still a good season and a good offense. But while that Chiefs Patriots game might be sleepy for us, it still had Patrick Mahomes throwing to his receivers. And there was still a really important moment in this game too. Let's go to play action. Okay, fourth quarter, Chiefs Patriots.

Chiefs are up 17. They're going to win this ball games. So what are we going to do in the fourth quarter? Let's throw the ball to Cadar's Tony. Let's work on this relationship. Let's get him a catch. And so Tony's here is the number three receiver. He's going to run what initially looks like a curl route. It's going to stop there for a second and then it's going to break to the inside. Right. Nice little route. A lot of the offense has this route. It's going to open up against the linebacker. You just love the matchup. It's great. We're going to go vertical here. We're going to go a little inbreaker and then go vertical with Kelsey. We're just going to clear out everything

for this Cadarius Tony route. That lovely, delightful. It's going to be so routine, such a nice, easy catch and pitch and then it's an interception on a drop right it's a drop batteball interception and the Patriots run around with it lateral whatever okay so that's the play now I want you to watch the entire time Patrick Mahomes let's watch the quarterback let's watch let's watch the emotions he goes through here on this designed to play for there's Tony oh man and now I got I got to try to tackle him okay push you and okay that's done and all right I'm finning the get get the head he gets the hand on the head he doesn't a little scratch. This is not a happy camera. Now, again, this interception is not meaningful in the

win-loss column for the chiefs. It is, however, meaningful in the Patrick Mahomes' general quality of life column. And the cameras caught Mahomes on the sideline after this pick. Okay, so here's Mahom, sit down. I just eff-and-set it, man. I'm not going to do his voice. I'm not going to do that. I'm not imitating him. Just, unsaid it, man. G-D. I'm not going to say that either. catch the ball is what Bahams would like to say there and his very angry man on the bench. So now with this drop, and particularly with this interception off of this drop, Cadarius Tony has now dropped 13.5% of his targets,

which is third worst in the league, and he is now ninth worst in the league among receivers in EPA per target, which, like, crazily enough, he's not even the worst chief's receiver in EPA per target. That's Sky Moore, who is sixth worst in the league. Now, none of this is any secret to anybody, right? Cadarious, Tony's mishaps and foibles have been very clear, highlight real-level bad stuff in critical moments. And while Skymore isn't like lining up off-sides and ruining one of the greatest come from behind victory plays we've ever seen ever, Skymore's also been very clearly badly. None of this is news. I think there are two things with the Chief's receivers that are actually news and are important to understanding the Chief's upcoming playoff run.

And the first has to do with Travis Kelsey. Kelsey's having not. the sort of season we're accustomed to sing from him, right? He's still getting used in largely the same way, right? His target per route run is about where it usually is. His area yards per target is not like where it used to be, but it's around where it's been the last couple of seasons. Like distribution-wise, he's still getting targeted at the same rate and targeted generally in the same areas of the field. The problem is yards per route is down relative to career average. Explosive pass rate is way down relative to like previous numbers that he was putting up, right? Less first down for reception, less first down per target. And remarkably,

remarkably less yards after catch per target. And so he's still getting the same looks in the same general area. He's producing fewer first downs, fewer explosives, fewer yards after the catch. And so the average Kelsey target just isn't as valuable as it used to be. Why is this? Well, Kelsey's just getting old. Kelsey turned 34 this year, which is crazy. He doesn't feel like he's 34. He's very youthful energy, Travis Kelsey. It's making great personal life strides I've learned. But in general, that 34 is old for a tight end. Travis Kelsey has 924 receiving yards on the season right now. So he's going to clear 1,000.

And when he does, he's going to become only the second tight end, 34 years or older, to have a thousand yard receiving. He's joining Pete Retzlaff from 1965, okay? It is hard for a tight end to be this old and be this productive. So it's still like a good season relative to league standards, but not a good season relative to like 29, 30-year-old Kelsey. This is Kelsey two weeks ago against the bill. He's right here attached to the bottom of the screen.

And concept-wise, we're going to just run interference on this nickel defender. And Kelsey's going to have option, right? He can have two-way go. This whole thing is just opening up Kelsey, right? This is just like a very classic Mahomes and Kelsey shenanigan route. Yeah? Just watch Kelsey the whole way. If I just gave you that play,

would you believe that, like, that was one of the most athletic tight ends in the leaf, like five straight years? Because it just doesn't, he doesn't, he's not moving the same way that he used to move. Like, just into the route. it's tempo and it's creating space. I understand that. But like before the catch and after the catch is just a remarkably less juiced up guy

than he used to be. It's like this here is a weird one. I don't get like this, this play is weird to me. Very common red zone concept. Sky Moore is going to be the first cross or the first post and his job is to just pull coverage, right? You're just going to try to pull that deep middle safety

so that Travis Kelsey can lean outside and then bang, second post to the inside and then you throw this on him, right? You either throw it fast in the window or you throw it to the back line. You put it up on his face mask, right? So there's two options for the throw. Depends on how coverage plays out. But this is a very common concept, okay?

So now let's run this. First thing, Kelsey's got to be up in the route faster, right? Like this is, you got to get upfield now. You gotta get, you shouldn't be collisioning here. You should be getting upfield and going because he ends up being a little bit late for Mahomes, right? Like by the time Mahomes wants to throw this, the window's not there. He's kind of pulled it inside.

There's an underneath defender. He's got to get this up vertical. And if you were vertical right now, Mahomes could throw this thing to the end line. But the timing of it is off. So Mahomes enters Scramble Drill mode, right? We can watch him. He's, okay, go Scramble Drill.

He still wants Kelsey, though, because there's just so much space, right? The middle safety moved. So now as Kelsey bends this into Scramble Drill mode, you have two options. You can carry Kelsey, keep pulling him to the back pile on, and throw this thing top shelf

and he tries to catch it over Miles Bryant, right? Beew, boop. Or as he pushes Miles Bryant, you can throw this to his back shoulder, right? On a laser beam, bang. And then Bryant won't see it because his back is to you. So you throw it to his back shoulder. Kelsey will shuck Brian.

He'll shove him off to the side and he'll get back to the ball. So you have two options on the throw. Mahomes chooses the second one, which he and Kelsey do all the time, right? She's kind of like, I'm going to throw you open. I'm going to anticipate coverage, anticipate how bodies move.

Watch what Kelsey does. He just, ops and fakes DPI. Like he's just asking for a flag. That's all he does, right? So watch this thing all the way through. Okay, we got to get up field. Get up field.

Turn your head. Get up field. Holmes enter scramble drill mode and then just, I don't know why we can't get back to that ball. The additional context of Kelsey just deteriorating naturally over time because he's getting older is an important one because last year, the chiefs were making passing games work with Cadarious Tony and with Skymore and with Marquezvolda Scantling and Justin Watson and it had juju-Smith schuster but it was largely the same wide receiver room so like why is it

so much worse this season than last season it's because of the the slow falling off of kelsey so with the falling off of kelsey now there's really nothing about the chief's passing game that terrifies you besides like the obvious mohomes of it all he's very very scary but once the ball's out of his hands you kind of breathe a sigh of relief because these receivers aren't reliable and they're pretty much juiceless, except for rookie wide receiver Rishi Rice. Anyone who's been watching the Chiefs all season has been calling for this, but the Chiefs finally now are giving it to us because they are ramping up Rice's volume. He ran a route on 95% of the Chiefs dropbacks against the Patriots. It is his career high, following the career high from last week. He is becoming the feature

receiver in this offense. Now, NFL teams are always perilously slow to onboard rookies. they don't want to overload them, and that's generally probably a good process. But this has been a long time coming for the Chiefs, brother. Rice has been the most reliable receiver on the Chiefs. He has not dropped the pass this season, and he has been the most explosive, the most dynamic receiver on the Chiefs comfortably. Take a look at this graph, right? This down here is air yards per target.

So all the guys over here get targeted way further down the field. All the guys over here get targeted shallow, right, close to the line of scrimmage. And then this is yak per reception. So how much yards are you generating with each catch? Debo Samuel right here is the graph breaker, right? We all know Debo creates yak like nobody else. But this second tier right here, this top tier of guys, right there is Rishi Rice. Right?

These averaging almost eight yards after the catch per reception, that is a big, big deal for a Chief's offense right now that really needs a guy who can create. This is actually just a really illustrative graph for us to understand the Chief's wide receiver problems as they are. The Chiefs wide receivers are very polar. Right now you have Rice and you have Cadarius Tony who are just super shallow guys. trying to get yards after the catch out of. And because Tony's been so unreliable, and he's dropping passes, he hasn't been good, he's not actually giving them bang for their buck

on these short throws. Meanwhile, you have the deep ball guys, right? The explosive play merchants, that's Mark Hesvalda Scanling and Justin Watson. You can't take these guys because they're drop-heavy dudes, they're kind of vertical speed guys, and put them into this role

because they're not reliable enough, their hands aren't reliable enough, they're not good enough tackle breakers. That role now for the Chiefs belongs to Rice and Rice alone. You want to see quarterback-friendly? You want to see how a wide receiver earns himself more targets in an offense. We're going to package play, right? RPO. We're going to pull a guard.

We're going to have a run play in here. And then Rishu Rice is the package. He's just on a little bubble. There's no blocker, right? This is no like, and we pull you. We pull you another way. It's just, okay, Rice, if you have a big cushion, we're going to give you the ball and we're going to ask you to beat Darius Slay in space.

That's the whole idea here. So package to play. I like the past look a lot more than the run look. So I'm going to give this ball to Rashid Rice 101. Firstly, catch an inaccurate ball. Catch an inaccurate ball, the line of scrimmage. and then whoop, 15-yard game. End zone view.

There's our fake. There's our catch. Now this, that's ankles right there. My brother would hear him, he would tell them, ankles. That's what you say to the kids these days. Angles. Again, earning targets, earning reps, right? Listen, this is just mesh, right?

Like, this is no. That other one was like, okay, throw it to Rishi. Like, you know, get the concept. This time we have bust, right? The Raiders bust this out. Markesvalda Scanling is begging for the ball. Rishie Rice is on the shallow. Mahomes says, I'm getting this ball to right.

Right? Like, I'm reading this out in the middle of the field. I haven't looked at MBS yet. I just see that I can get this ball to rice on the runs. I'm just going to do it. Let's have him pay me off. New. Get the block, survive the sideline, touchdown, right? Create a 40 plus yard touchdown out of a five-yard air yard throw. That is rewarding your quarterback for his trust. All right, so let's keep elevating. Let's keep more on the rookie's plate. We are in two-minute drill, down 14 against the bills. All right? This is the end of the first half. We look like we're getting press man, press man. Over here, we could be getting man coverage. This could be zone coverage. We have a slant flat over here, and then we have double slants to the top of the screen. So with press man coverage, we like this matchup.

Whoever this is out here, that's what we want, right? Because this first slant's going to step into linebacker's going to step into trash. This second slant will step into space. So Mahom's going to say, all right, I'm going to trust Rishi Rice at the top to win against press man, even though I have Kelsey down here, who's just going to be quick to the flat against potentially soft coverage, right? So I'm going to pick that matchup up top.

It's the right matchup to pick, but I'm going to trust that guy up there. Oh. And then catch him run, right? Now, okay, like Ben, it's a four-yard slant route. Like, what do I care? This is a good route. And critically, what's good about the route is the timing, is the pace.

He's into it. He's into it right now, right? So upfield, quickly break Benford off, flip your head around, get your eyes to the ball, make the catch-in stride, and then run upfield. It's a 17-yard gain on first and 25. That is an important play. And they score on this drive.

So now have a final moment. We're going to start drawing up plays for the young man. All right. This is, we're in another two-minute situation. We are down three to the Patriots right now at the end of the first half. We are going to clear out with Justin Watson, and we're just going to run dagger. We're going to run the dig with Rishi Rice on third and nine past the sticks. Primary in the concept on a got-to-have-it-down, rookie wide receiver Rishie Rice.

What happens? It's now football. Let me get immediate pressure down the pipe, right? Right as Rice is breaking here, which this is going to open, right? We're pulling Juan Bentley downfield. He's pushing downfield. We can put the ball right here before this linebacker can get involved. We have pressure in the pocket.

So now Mahomes has to enter creation mode. It has to scramble and reset. Look who just stood right where he was supposed to stay. Like you even see Rice. He's thinking about like going and doing something scramble drill wise. But he says, all right. Like linebacker, linebacker. I have room.

I'm just going to be where Patrick expects me to be. Like I'm not, I'm just not going to move. And Malam's puts it on him. Why not? End zone view. Snap the ball. Top of the drop back. Immediate pressure.

We have to reset. And now like, right, it's, okay, Kelsey's going to pull this way and that linebackers with him. And if we just, Mahomes just right to Rishi Rice. Because Rice just stayed where Mahomes needed him to be and reliably catches the football. So we designed to play for him now. So if you're going to be the primary third and nine, we couldn't get it because somebody else lost. And Rishis still just said, all right, I'm going to make myself open and a

available for a third down conversion. This is a quarterback friendly rookie receiver, which is a rare, rare thing to find and something the Chiefs desperately needed. So the question from a Holmes and the Chief's offense all season has been right. You guys aren't as good as you were. Like, you're definitely not as good as you were. But are you good enough still to make a Super Bowl run? You still clear that bar? And I think the answer is yes. They're good enough because they're casting away some of the cadarius Tony reps and some of the Marquezvalda scantling targets and the Skymore usage. And they're saying, listen, our rookie is ready. We like to onboard our rookie slow, but Rishie Rice is a dynamic and reliable quarterback-friendly

target, a rare thing for a rookie receiver to be, but he is so on the field right now. And as long as 15s back there, working Rice into the offense more and more every single week, continuing to use Travis Kelsey as to a reliable target. As Abe Pacheco comes back from injury, we get this running game going again. Yeah, I buy it. I buy that this Chief's offense, not as sexy as it once was, not as good as like the doll, or the bills, but this Chief's offense is good enough still to power a Super Bowl run. And that'll do it.

Frost here on the play sheet. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you to Corey McConnell for producing the episode. Thank you to Rishu Rice for being way better than rookie receivers are supposed to be. Thank you to Cadarius Tony for providing us with content. Travis Kelsey, I'm sorry I called you old. It's just you are a little bit. Watch the episodes and rate and review and subscribe and comments.

It's going to be great.