Chiefs News: Rashee Rice ready to grow and mature

The latest

Rashee Rice: “All I can do is mature and continue to grow” | NBC Sports

Rice is facing eight felony charges for his role in a multi-car crash in April, and separately he is suspected of assault at a nightclub in May.

“I’ve learned so much from that,” he told reporters at a football camp, via ESPN. “All I can do is mature and continue to grow from that. This is a step in a better direction for me. . . . Accidents and stuff like that happen, but all you can do is move forward and walk around being the same person, try to be positive so that everybody can feel your love and your great energy.”

The criminal case against Rice is pending, as is the NFL’s investigation into whether Rice violated the league’s personal conduct policy.

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14. Chiefs Bring in Marquise Brown

All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce clearly can carry a pass-catching corps. Simultaneously, the Kansas City Chiefs had underwhelming group of receivers after Rashee Rice in 2023. They snatched Marquise Brown for a modest $7 million in a high-upside move. Brown’s production dipped on bad Arizona Cardinals teams recently, but he was a 1,000-yard target for the Baltimore Ravens during the 2021 campaign.

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AFC West

Broncos: Jaleel McLaughlin

Chiefs: Xavier Worthy and/or Marquise Brown

Raiders: Jack Jones

Chargers: Ladd McConkey and/or Quentin Johnston

Did you see what McLaughlin could do in open space when given the opportunity last season? I’d like to see that more often. Worthy and Brown bring incredible speed to the table. Jones does as well, and he returned kicks in college. McConkey also has amazing speed, but he has an elusiveness element as well. He’d be great for this. It’s much harder to drop a kick than a pass, so Johnston could put his ridiculous athleticism to much more use than he did as a rookie.

What a Team of Remaining 2024 NFL Free Agents Would Look Like | Bleacher Report

OT Donovan Smith, D.J. Humphries

A little cheating aside since both Donovan Smith and D.J. Humphries have primarily been left tackles throughout their careers, these options can provide steady bookends for an offensive line.

Four months ago, Smith was the starting left tackle on a Super Bowl-winning squad. The 30-year-old blindside protector has been a starter since he walked into the league as a rookie during the 2015 campaign. With 136 starts already under his belt, a squad would be hard-pressed to find anymore more capable of an offensive line.

To be clear, Smith is an average performer. He isn’t an elite athlete, and there are reasons why the Chiefs decided to go in another direction. Still, a team knows exactly what it’s getting with the veteran blocker in the lineup.

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Hollywood’s financial hopes

The Chiefs also move their wide receivers around the offensive formation a fair amount. As a result, multiple wide receivers may take snaps from both the slot and on the outside. With that in mind, Brown could easily see his snaps split between inside and outside alignment at a decent clip. Having additional speed in the fold will certainly help.

Starting with Brown himself, the pass catcher can open up so much more for others within the offense. The deep ball is something Kansas City is looking to incorporate more into the offense in 2024, as Mahomes mentioned recently on The Pat McAfee Show. During OTAs, the Chiefs posted a deep ball connection between Mahomes and Brown. There are more moments to point toward of the new wide receiver excelling in that area.

Around the NFL

2024 Saints minicamp: Derek Carr’s backup, cornerbacks, more | ESPN

“It gives me nostalgic vibes of what I’ve seen in the past and … played against, so, I likey,” he said with a smile.

Williams wasn’t talking about 2022, when he scored 17 touchdowns while with the Detroit Lions, or even the successful offenses of past Saints teams. He was specifically recalling when Raheem Mostert, then with the San Francisco 49ers, rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns against the Green Bay Packers in the 2018 playoffs. New Orleans intends to run a similar version of that style of offense made famous by Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak, the fathers of Niners coach Kyle Shanahan and Kubiak.

It’s the kind of success Williams can get behind.

“I’ve seen this offense before,” he said. “Going against it, watched it. I remember Raheem Mostert going crazy against us in Green Bay. … It’s THAT offense. I love it.”

David Njoku teases ‘juicy’ Browns offense led by new OC Ken Dorsey: ‘I’m really excited for this year’ | NFL.com

The Browns tight end told Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon-Journal at his annual softball event on Saturday that he’s looking to “just be better than last year,” which will be hard to top.

Njoku enjoyed career highs across the board for the playoff-bound Browns in 2023; he finished with a team-high 81 catches on 123 targets, 882 receiving yards and six touchdowns, all the while playing alongside five starting quarterbacks. The tight end rightly earned his first Pro Bowl nod.

In 2024, Njoku will have to adjust. Deshaun Watson is returning to the fold as Cleveland’s starting QB after two suspension- and injury-tainted seasons; fellow former first-round pass catcher Jerry Jeudy is joining a stacked WR corps already boasting Amari Cooper and Elijah Moore; and after four seasons with Alex Van Pelt, Cleveland will a new offensive coordinator: Ken Dorsey.

Dorsey will be Njoku’s fifth OC in eight seasons with the Browns, but the 27-year-old tight end is looking forward to this latest change.

“It is juicy,” Njoku said of Dorsey’s offense. “I am not going to say anything else. Leave it at that. But I’m really excited for this year.”

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

Chiefs News: Everything we know about the new bill for a Kansas stadium

What’s on the table for the Chiefs

If passed, the Kansas bill would authorize the issue of sales tax and revenue bonds — popularly known as “STAR bonds” — to finance the construction of a new stadium and practice facility. It is expected that $2 billion to $3 billion would be required.

These bonds are essentially unique to Kansas. They are meant to finance attractions that attract a significant part of their revenue from non-Kansas sources — and whose existence is intended to spur nearby development. Like other state and municipal bonds, they are sold (at a discounted price) to private investors. State sales taxes collected at these attractions are used to repay the private investors. After the bonds are repaid, those sales taxes flow into normal coffers.

According to the state of Kansas, STAR bond financing may only be used for “less than 50%” of a project’s total cost “as a general rule.” In a Tuesday interview with 810 Sports’ Soren Petro, representative Tarwater was noncommittal about how much the Chiefs would be required to contribute to what he said would not be a “rinky-dink, temporary solution.”

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