Four young heroes emerge for Kansas City Chiefs in Week 6

Rashee Rice

Coming into the regular season, there were two conversations happening at once about the wide receiver room.

On one level, some fans were ecstatic with the potential number of young playmakers on the roster and glowed with excitement when the Chiefs front office and coaching staff decided to roll with 7 wideouts on the active roster instead of leaving someone out like Justyn Ross.

The other conversation taking place were among the more suspicious fans, those who wondered who was going to step up with any certainty in the midst of so many questions. From Skyy Moore's lack of emergence to Kadarius Toney's injury history to Rashee Rice's inexperience to Marquez Valdes-Scantling's known ceiling, the room felt unsettled to some.

Six games into the season, the naysayers have it. That's not to say the Chiefs are without playmakers in that room, but the same questions that lingered in the preseason are still present even after the Chiefs are 5-1. The team's tight ends and running backs are feasting just fine, but Patrick Mahomes is clearly lacking rapport with the team's wideouts and it feels like all parties involved—coaches and players—are still getting to know each other. The Chiefs have had wide receiver problems all season

All of this is important context because Rashee Rice is breaking out. He's already been a popular pick among fans to emerge from the lot and grab the top WR role from the rest of the pack and he might have made it official against the Broncos. On a night where everyone not named Rashee in the WR room had 33 total yards, Rice caught all four of his targets for 72 yards.

While 72 yards wouldn't really move the meter in previous seasons for a Chiefs pass catcher, the truth is that Rice is really separating himself from the pack at this point with such differentiation in the box score. Our friend Adam Best has our favorite comparisons so we'll leave you with this.