RP Clips: Kansas City, We Have a Wide Receiver Problem

Matt Harmon (0:00)

This is Reception Perception The Show. Now, James Koh and Matt Harmon.

James Koh (0:06)

One of my biggest takeaways was I don't understand why Denver was playing so much zone coverage, right? Like, to me, that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And again, you know what's crazy, too, is the fact that this Denver Broncos defense was, had the seventh highest man coverage rate in the NFL last year, according to Super Sports, and yet just played man on just 27%.

Of their coverage against Kansas City, a team that pretty much everyone knows, you can man lock these guys up man to man all day long. So I'm, I was very confused by the, by the defensive game plan coming in. It seemed like they were just way too base. And when you're facing Kansas City, why wouldn't you change your defensive schematics here? Just a little bit. I don't know. Anyways, neither here nor there.

I will say though, it's not good when your leading receiver is a running back. Your second leading receiver is a tight end. And the, you have to go pretty far down the list here. Rashid Rice had 19 yards receiving. He was your top pass getter as a wide receiver with just 19 yards. And I think 13 of those, yeah, 13 of those came because of two missed tackles from Denver. So what are we really talking about here with the wide receiver play for Kansas City? Like I said, I just thought, look, they got the win and they look dominant against Denver. But Matt, there's no way that you can convince me that this is not a long term problem. Like if you are looking down the road and down the schedule, the lack of production and the lack of separation from their wide receivers is going to be a huge problem.

Matt Harmon (1:46)

These guys are not good. Like, I'm sorry, it's just as simple as that. They're not good enough to be 1s and 2s in the NFL, Rashid Rice and Xavier Worthy, especially this version of Rashid Rice. I mean, the guy rehabbed a knee injury in jail. You cannot convince me that he is like 100% right now. Okay?

You know, I mean, when will he be 100% this season? Hopefully, I mean, geez, he's a good, he's good at what he does. He just is a limited player. And unfortunately, when he's your number one receiver by a long shot, you know, that's going to be a problem. And these are a couple other issues for, I mean, Rashid Rice and Xavier Worthy ran 91% of the routes on Monday night. Did, could you tell?

No, I mean, Rashid Rice's usage in this game is also, I mean, the one thing that's the same is that his average depth of target was 2.5 yards, which is actually lower than his usual. He's been at 4.5 ish throughout the course of his NFL career, which is the lowest, as I mentioned, since he entered the league among anybody who's played, you know, a relevant amount of snaps. He was targeted on 6.7% of his routes on Monday night. That is by far the lowest of his NFL career. The only one that is lower than that is that week four game in 2024, where he ran three routes and then tore his ACL after the friendly fire from Patrick Mahomes. He's been over 10% in every other game, and you got to go back to his rookie season to consistently get games where he is under 20%. So this was a big departure for Rashid Rice. The other part, and again, this comes back to the fact that you're playing a lot more heavy personnel. He was in the slot on 25% of his snaps, again, the lowest of his NFL career. Previously, the lowest in the game, regular season playoffs, was 31% against the Miami Dolphins in, yes, once again, his rookie season. So this is not a guy that's ever been like a boundary receiver consistently in the NFL. If they're gonna play more heavy stuff, he's gonna have to be. And just again, like at this point, we just don't have, we have literally zero evidence that he can be that guy.

And it's made even worse because Xavier Worthy, at this point, has not shown to be like a guy that can win on his own as well. Cyrus Allen, you know, I like Cyrus Allen, obviously. I was a fan of him as a prospect. He ran one route in this game. And I can't believe there's people like trying to dunk on, like, well, he's Cyrus Allen all the time. He's a round five rookie, okay? Like, he's not ready to play every single snap. That never happens unless you're puking a kua, and I don't think he's going to be puking a kua. So, yeah, it's just their receiver room's a... It's a problem. It is what it is.