Short term adjustments for the Chiefs' offense
How can the Chiefs adapt in Rashee Rice's absence
The Chiefs’ week four victory over the divisional rival Los Angeles Chargers came at a price when Patrick Mahomes rolled into budding star wide receiver Rashee Rice’s knee after a questionable interception.
A season that has already seen the team lose key free agent signing Hollywood Brown for at least the regular season turned worse with Rice’s injury. While there is still some mystery around the severity and timeline surrounding the former SMU product’s knee ligaments, he is expected to miss time.
The Chiefs set out to make sure that they weren’t going to have to deal with the struggles at the receiver position they had in 2023 with the additions of Brown and first round pick Xavier Worthy. Adding so much firepower in the offseason helped more appropriately place Justin Watson, Skyy Moore, and Mecole Hardman into limited roles.
With Brown and Rice now out, the situation in the receiver room is a lot more familiar to last year’s (still a Super Bowl winning) offense — plus Travis Kelce aged another year.
Week four’s offense saw its struggles as it worked through a gameplan that would no longer feature their most targeted player through three weeks of the season and instead pivoted more to Kelce — who dwarfed the rest of the team with 9 targets. However, only seven players in total received targets from Mahomes, and six of them had 3 or more in Mahomes’ 28 attempts.
The Chiefs found a way to win a game they struggled to find consistency in offensively. And for at least one week (and likely more) the Chiefs will be working with those in the building currently. The loss of Rice will necessitate yet another adjustment to how they’ll play football in the short term.
The bye week in some ways couldn’t be coming at a better time. After Monday’s game against the Saints, the Chiefs will get some time off to reassess their needs for the remainder of the regular season. Getting to the bye 5-0 would be a big accomplishment.
The Chiefs have time until the trade deadline to determine what they need to round out this group. If Rice could come back, they could choose to ride it out. But they’ll need to find out what they have by the deadline.
There are some things the Chiefs should consider in the short term planning for Rice’s absence. Here are some things they could try to implement.