A suspension is possible for Rice after two off-field incidents, but that's just part of what's lowering expectations for his second season. Kansas City wasted little time this offseason adding to its receiving corps both in free agency (Marquise Brown) and the draft (Xavier Worthy with a first-round pick). Both could drag Rice's target volume down after he averaged 7.6 targets per game from Week 7 through the Super Bowl. That's especially problematic for Rice, whose average depth of target sank as the season wore on and he had just four games with more than 75 yards, postseason included. Both Brown and Worthy profile as downfield options for the Chiefs and Travis Kelce remains a fixture in the passing game, further making it unlikely for Rice to be more explosive in 2024, especially if his target share shrinks. Tack on a potential suspension and there's a clear picture of Rice disappointing Fantasy managers this coming season. He's worth considering once Round 8 starts in PPR (maybe Round 9 in non-PPR), but chances are someone else in your league will draft Rice before then.
Rice was arguably the one thing that went right in a 2023 Chiefs wide receiver room that seemed to get everything else wrong. He delivered 212.5 fantasy points (eighth best among all rookies) and had seven top-25 positional weekly scores. Though he did most of his damage in the short game -- his 4.9 aDOT was lowest among wide receivers -- he quickly developed into a go-to target for Patrick Mahomes. Rice was WR8 in the season's final seven weeks, despite sitting out Week 18. Rice is tricky to rank, as he could be facing a multi-game suspension due to an off-the-field incident, but he has WR2 value when active. His usage should be similar to 2023 even after the team's offseason addition of deep threats Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy.
Rush Yds | Rush TD | Rec | Rec Yds | Rec TD |
---|---|---|---|---|
81.9 | 954.6 | 6.0 |
Pick 6.10
Pick 6.04
Pick 6.12
Pick 8.02
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