One of the most important factors when it comes to evaluating receivers for fantasy purposes is route participation, and there’s perhaps no better example in 2023 of the difference that increased opportunity cane make on a player’s season than Rashee Rice. Early in the season, Rice was on the field for less than half of the Chiefs’ offensive snaps and produced as such. But with the struggles of the likes of Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Skyy Moore, and Kadarius Toney to establish themselves as the clear No. 1 option in the passing game for Mahomes, Rice earned his shot and ran with it in the second half of the year.
Through the first eleven weeks of the season (pre-Thanksgiving), Rice was running a route on a meagre 45% of snaps – nowhere near a high enough rate to contribute on a consistent basis to fantasy teams or the Chiefs in general. His 10.2 PPR fantasy points per game from Weeks 1-11 ranked 50th among all wide receivers, and he finished just once in the weekly top-15 at the position in that span.
That changed, though, in Week 12: Rice’s route participation jumped to 68% that week and never came back down, leveling out for the rest of the season at 79% and allowing Rice to become a force to be reckoned with in fantasy lineups. Through the final six games of the season (Weeks 12-17), Rice’s 18.5 PPR points per game ranked 8th among all WRs in that span and featured three top-15 finishes at the position in six games.