Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes happened to work out with Rashee Rice ahead of the 2023 NFL draft by sheer chance. Now, just a few months later, Mahomes is already seeing some growth from his newest wide receiver.
Speaking on his impressions of him from what he saw in Texas, Mahomes spoke mainly on his route running and how his mindset in that regard is more like that of a veteran than a rookie.
“I think what you’ve all seen now even to this day now that he’s been here is I like the feel that he has when he was running the routes,” Mahomes said. “A lot of times you get a lot (of) young dudes who are extremely athletic and they just run as fast as they can. And they’re just running around, and they don’t know exactly where to be at.
“I could feel where he would sit there and he would listen to guys like Trav (Kelce), he would listen to Kadarius (Toney) and those guys would talk and he would get a feel for how he was running the route. Obviously, you know he has the explosiveness and the jump ball ability, but the way he was able to kind of feel throughout the zone coverages and pull up in the right spot, that’s more of a veteran-type mindset for a receiver so I was very excited about that. And now we’ll just continue to work him in here and there and continue to push him to be better and better and he’ll have an impact in this offense this year.”
Finding those soft spots in the zone will certainly be one of Rice’s new responsibilities as he seeks to replicate some of what the Chiefs lost in JuJu Smith-Schuster.
It’s certainly good to hear that Rice had the confidence to immediately learn as much as he could from players like Travis Kelce and Kadarius Toney, even before he was drafted to the team. Being a sponge in the locker room will only help his ability to pick things up quickly and get on the field to make an impact in 2023.
