Wide receiver Rashee Rice is back in action for the Kansas City Chiefs, playing a key role in the team’s dominant 31-0 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. Rice’s contributions helped the offense execute smoothly in the Week 7 matchup at Arrowhead Stadium. By Dominick Williams| Monty Davis
When he broke the huddle, Patrick Mahomes never once turned his head to the left.
Rashee Rice lined up there, one-on-one with Raiders cornerback Kyu Blue Kelly, and Mahomes didn’t want to give away whatever was running through his head.
That came after the snap. After receiving the football, Mahomes immediately turned left and fired a back-shoulder strike to Rice that the two made look routine.
It’s not.
It has literally never been part of this year’s Chiefs offense.
Not until Sunday at least, when they steamrolled the Raiders 31-0 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium — an outing so dominant that head coach Andy Reid seemed on the verge of apologizing to his counterpart.
The defense posted its first regular-season shutout in 14 years, a collectively perfect day, but the offense has cooked for four weeks, and, yes, that includes a losing effort in Jacksonville.
It just added a different dimension.
The Chiefs put up 434 yards Sunday, yet this column is going to focus on the guy who accounted for 42 of them, or about 9.7% of them. Actually, come to think of it, we’re going to focus on just 15 yards.
Two players.
Two plays.
They are the most telling snaps of the Chiefs’ ceiling — the most telling of what could be coming.
The first play is the one that led this piece, a 3-yard touchdown pass from Mahomes to Rice, cementing that a team that found itself in rock fights with bad opponents last year would enjoy a blowout on a perfect Kansas City afternoon. It ballooned the margin to 21-0 before halftime.
The throw seemed ordinary enough, as I mentioned, and for most teams, it is. Some 30 quarterbacks have used a back-shoulder or fade pass this year, per Sports Info Solutions data.
You know how many Mahomes threw in the initial six weeks before Sunday?
Zero.
You can fill in the blank with me here: It’s the first time he’s had that receiver on the field all year.
“We worked on that throw all offseason,” Mahomes said, referencing himself and Rice.
That offseason conversation started, per Rice’s account, when he reminded Mahomes, “I was a fade guy in college.”
But this isn’t a one-year narrative. Mahomes attempted only one true back-shoulder throw a year ago, with veteran trade acquisition DeAndre Hopkins on the other end. The data on these is concise, for a reference point, totaling 73 of those attempts across 30 quarterbacks in the NFL this year.
Well, 31 now.
Mahomes finally zipped one. And the guy with whom he hadn’t shared the field in some 384 days was on the other end of it. That’s not coincidence.
“I think you saw,” Reid said. “the trust that Pat has him in.”
Once.
And then twice.
Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice (No. 4) makes a move on a Las Vegas Raiders defender during the first half of an NFL Week 7 game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Dominick Williams dowilliams@kcstar.com
There’s another snap that illustrates a similar story, similarly worth our examination. It came a handful of plays earlier on the same drive.
Mahomes collected a shotgun snap then, too, and locked his eyes on wide receiver Xavier Worthy sprinting up the field. That was intentional, trying to keep Las Vegas linebacker Devin White believing that was his preference for throwing the football.
But in a play he’s just about patented, Mahomes fired a no-look toss to Rice instead. It gained 12 yards. From snap to throw, Mahomes knew where he planned to send it.
Rice didn’t. When I asked him his confidence the ball was coming his way, he quickly replied, “Zero percent. I kept telling him he threw me off with that. He no-looked the entire team.”
But?
“I’m glad we were on the same page.”
The same page. Even if he didn’t know it.
Rice ran only 16 routes in his return, his first 16 routes since a season-ending knee injury in Week 4 of last year. He’d missed the last six weeks while serving a suspension for his participation in a street race down a Dallas highway, a lamentable decision that cost him a jail sentence, probation, six NFL games and money.
He said Sunday that he doesn’t “ever want to feel” the emotion of missing games, but that’s largely in his control, and some of the buildup to his return needed to include the reminder of why he was out.
Chiefs receivers Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, from left, and Rashee Rice (No. 4) share a laugh with quarterback Patrick Mahomes (No. 15) on the sideline late in an NFL Week 7 win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Dominick Williams dowilliams@kcstar.com
His missing football didn’t come by accident.
From a less important football perspective, the Chiefs were reminded what they were missing, too.
Rice is terrific after the catch on the football field, a trait that materialized on his first touchdown. He traveled all of two yards but fought through traffic and a facemask for it. That’s a trait the Chiefs utilize literally better than any team in the league over the last six years, leading the NFL in yards after catch in four of them. And now they have one of the best receivers in the business after the catch.
Which is why those two plays — the combined 15 yards — stand out.
We know his value after the catch.
The important moments here came before the catch.