Rashee Rice — Week 1: Two Targets, One Touchdown

Seven to seven, a minute 46 left in the second quarter, first and 10 at the Denver 13. Patrick Mahomes threw short right to Rashee Rice for the touchdown. +2.5 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 5.1 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. Kansas City led 14 to seven at the half and never led by fewer than seven again.

The line: two targets, two catches, 19 yards, one touchdown, one first down, +2.1 expected points on the targets. The other catch was six yards on third and seven with 13 36 left in the third quarter, one short of the sticks, and the Chiefs went for it on fourth and one and Kenneth Walker ran 60 yards. One target before halftime, one after. His share of the team's 25 credited targets was eight percent.

The split: Xavier Worthy six targets, Walker six, Travis Kelce five, Rice two, Emmett Johnson two, and one each to Cyrus Allen, Tyquan Thornton, Jake Briningstool and Noah Gray. 27 throws on the night, 18 pass plays before halftime and 11 after, against 31 designed runs. Rice's two targets were worth more than Worthy's six.

Back in June the preview leaned watchlist on Rice — the thirteenth receiver at pick 31, a WR5 per-game rate built on eight games and nearly 10 targets a game — and named two things to watch: any league or court news first, and then the target share in a receiver room that was healthy for the first time. On the second, Monday was a low number: two targets, fifth on the team, in a game the Chiefs won on the ground with 27 throws. He caught both and scored. One game with the run game working this well says almost nothing about a target share; the September number is the one to read. The Chiefs are home to the Colts on Sunday night, the twentieth.

_Data via nflverse._