Rashee Rice - WR - SMU

If the Monstars stole all of Ja'Marr Chase's powers

I’m struggling to figure out why Rashee Rice is being so hyped up right now.

Rice is being billed as a dominant ball-winner with YAC ability, and I’m just not sure he’s good enough at what he’s supposed to be great at to be an NFL difference maker.

Certainly, he has flashed these skills. Rice accumulated over 3,000 yards and 25 TDs in his college career. He has his fair share of highlights.

Rice has displayed above-average focus, tenacity, and hand strength to come down with some absolute circus catches.

Theo Ash @16GSSclips

Good catch by Rashee Rice

You’ve gotta be pretty tough to box guys out, absorb contact in the air, survive the ground, etc.

Strength is the greatest strength in Rice’s game. It shines through not only in situations like this, but also when he’s bouncing off tackles down the field, and especially when he’s run blocking. He really gets after it.

James Foster @NoFlagsFilm

Rashee Rice is the best run blocking WR in this class by a comfortable margin

But run blocking and the occasional contested catch doesn’t make a guy a starting NFL receiver, and to me, Rice doesn’t check many boxes outside of physicality.

First of all, his hands are not actually that good. Frustrating drops are littered throughout his tape, and the numbers don’t match the highlights when it comes to his effectiveness on those 50/50 balls.

Brett Kollmann @BrettKollmann

Went through all of his contested targets and came away a bit sketched out with how Wicks plays the ball through contact. 25% contested catch rate compared to a true ball winner like Josh Downs who is at almost 70%. Rashee Rice is a similar story. 39% contested catch rate.

tatiana @TheNotoriousTGB

@BrettKollmann have you laid your peepers on Dontayvion Wicks at the senior bowl yet?

Rice doesn’t actually dominate at the catch point like you’d think. Even on the easy ones, he’s unreliable. He frequently takes his eye off the ball before securing it, looking ahead to either brace for the hit, or plan his YAC path.

Here are some numbers comparing Rice to some of the other members of this draft class. If you eliminate things like swing passes and screens, and look at targets more than 4 yards down the field, it’s clear Rice has unreliable hands. His drop rate is north of 10% in those situations, his on-target catch rate is below 80%, his overall catch rate is below 50%.

At SMU Rice was listed at 6’3, but he measured in at a cool 6’0 at the Senior Bowl. On top of the numbers, he doesn’t really have the body for the type of player he is.

Drops aren’t the biggest problem. I can deal with some bad drops as long as a guy is getting open.

But I also don’t think Rice will be able to create separation against starting NFL corners. He wasn’t asked to run a full route tree at SMU, and I don’t think he has much juice.

If I see a prospect mocked in the first round from the American Athletic Conference, I need them to clearly be a cut above the rest of the athletes on the field.

Theo Ash @16GSSclips

Rice big post

Rice is at the bottom of the screen running the post. At the break, he does sell a nice head fake that gets the corner turned the wrong way, but Rice doesn’t really have a second gear to create any vertical separation after that.

Rice does have pretty good body control. One of his signature moves is stopping immediately after the catch, DB overshoots him, then he gets going again. He catches a lot of comeback routes and he’s able to quickly twist upfield and chew up yards.

But he’s just not explosive enough, to me, to be nearly as good of a playmaker with the ball in his hands in the NFL as he is in the AAC. It’s not difficult to run with Rice, and the strategy he uses to create separation down the field is simply to push off.

Billy M @BillyM_91

Rashee Rice vs Anthony Johnson

So Rice is not an elite athlete and he frequently drops the ball, but perhaps his biggest issue is his lack of ability to beat press coverage.

Theo Ash @TheoAshNFL

🫣

His releases are inefficient. Here Rice pumps his feet wildly, but is he threatening the leverage of the corner? No. He wastes valuable time, doesn’t go anywhere, and the CB is able to casually jam as Rice tries to stack him. Rice completely loses control of the rep, and gets thrown out of bounds.

Theo Ash @16GSSclips

Rice at the Senior Bowl

Rice had an inconsistent senior bowl performance because of this issue. On this play he tries a split release, where you get both feet even with each other and have the option to drive off either foot based on the leverage of the corner, but he doesn’t get a good read on the back, and ends up taking seven steps just shuffling forward. Once eventually drives off his inside foot, the defensive back is able to flip his hips and stay on top of Rice.

Rice has the body control to one day be a good route runner, but SMU had him running almost entirely screens, comebacks, and go routes, plus lower level corners didn’t test him in press man very often. So he’s very raw in this area.

I envision Rice as a power slot type. Let him insert into the blocking scheme, let him run short and intermediate routes instead of asking him to threaten vertically. It’s also harder to press slot players. Rice played primarily in the slot in 2021, and although he didn’t put up gaudy numbers then like he did this year, he was more efficient on a per-target basis.

One more thing that concerns me about him, and maybe this is unfair because every situation is different, but he is a senior breakout. Rice will be 23 on draft day.

History tells us that WRs who played their senior year do not usually make good draft prospects. Guys who are elite NFL players are usually good enough to declare as soon as they are eligible.

Luca Sartirana wrote a good article about this. I just hyperlinked it.

Overall, I don’t think Rice looks like a good NFL starter on film, and history suggests senior WR prospects aren’t good bets anyway. The outliers - guys like Terry McLaurin or Deebo Samuel - looked like outliers at the senior bowl. Rice didn’t really do that either.

Grade: 5.9 - Depth Piece - 5th Round Prospect

Where I’d like to see him

Jacksonville Jaguars: Jacksonville had Jamal Agnew playing crucial snaps in a playoff game. No more of this. Calvin Ridley and Christian Kirk aren’t very good ball winners at the point of attack. Their spectacular catch guy, Marvin Jones, is old and a free agent. They need a guy with Rice’s skillset.

Seattle Seahawks: DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are elite perimeter threats, but Seattle could use a security blanket in the slot. Seattle’s EPA/Pass when targeting guys aligned out wide ranked 8th in the league. Their EPA/Pass targeting the slot ranked 27th.

Arizona Cardinals: With the loss of D Hop imminent and AJ Green already retired, the Cardinals desperately need a big-bodied possession receiver. Greg Dortch is tiny, Rondale Moore is tiny, Hollywood Brown is tiny. They need a new ball winner.