The Kansas City Chiefs are 4-0 after Sunday’s 17-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers.
They’re one of only three teams that are undefeated — and that could shrink to two after Monday night’s game to end Week 4, when the over-performing 3-0 Seattle Seahawks face the favored 2-1 Detroit Lions. They could be in line to be the first team ever in the Super Bowl era to win three straight championships, and the first one to even have a shot at it since the 2005 season, when the New England Patriots had won back-to-back titles.
So why are faces looking so long in northwest Missouri and the surrounding suburbs after Sunday’s win? Well, yet again, the Chiefs have been hit by the injury bug — and this time, it’s not the oft-dinged-up Patrick Mahomes who’s hobbled.
Instead, wide receiver Rashee Rice — the team’s top offensive weapon thus far in 2024 — was taken off the field on the dreaded motorized cart of doom after a play in the second quarter in Los Angeles.
At halftime, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Rice’s injury was “not good,” and early reports from ESPN indicated that it was potentially a torn ACL, which would likely leave him out for the season.
The injury occurred during an odd play in the first quarter as Los Angeles held a 7-0 lead. Mahomes overthrew tight end/Taylor Swift beau Travis Kelce and had the pass intercepted by the Chargers’ Kristian Fulton.
During the runback, Fulton coughed up the ball after both Mahomes and Rice combined on a hit, and the subsequent fumble looked to be recovered by the Chiefs. However, the fumbled ball was ruled out of bounds after review, and the Chargers got a field goal out of the deal to extend their lead to 10-0.
Chiefs WR Rashee Rice was carted off the field after this play: pic.twitter.com/3W2VZ46iPF
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 29, 2024
As he was carted off the field, Rice looked as if he knew the injury was a bad one:
HEARTBREAKING: #Chiefs star WR Rashee Rice appears to be inconsolable as he is being carted off the field.
🙏
It appears to be serious for Rice.
pic.twitter.com/O9iTHqY5hJ— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) September 29, 2024
Reid noted that the injury was “not good” during a sideline interview before halftime, according to Yahoo Sports. In a post-game interview, he said he said Rice, a Southern Methodist University product, would undergo an MRI on Monday.
“I feel terrible for Rashee,” he said.
Rice, a second-round pick in the NFL Draft in 2023, has been the leading target for Mahomes thus far this season, collecting 24 catches for 288 yards. ESPN’s Adam Schefter, generally considered one of the league’s most reliable insiders, reported that the team fears that the injury is a torn ACL.
The news put a blanket on the Chiefs’ comeback, which saw them score 17 straight points to win and remain undefeated. Mahomes was 19 of 29 for 245 yards and one touchdown and one interception. Kareem Hunt was the top rusher with 69 yards on 14 attempts. Kelce led receivers with 89 yards, followed by rookie Xavier Worthy with 73.
If Rice is done for the season, however, it presents major hurdles for the NFL’s first ever Super Bowl three-peat.
The team is already missing its top rusher, Isiah Pacheco, who fractured his fibula in Week 2 and isn’t going to be available until at least Week 8.
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The team signed Hunt to fill in at running back, but he has a history of off-the-field issues. The former Chief was a breakout player in 2017, rushing for 1,327 yards in his rookie campaign, but was dropped from the team midway through the 2018 season after damning video of him in a physical altercation with a woman in a hotel surfaced. He was signed by the Cleveland Browns in 2019, but except for an 841-yard season in 2020, was mostly unremarkable during his time there.
Xavier Worthy, who the Chiefs picked with the No. 28 spot in this year’s NFL Draft, has proven to be a speedy rookie talent, but he likely won’t get open quite as often with both Rice and Pacheco, the team’s two biggest offensive threats, out of the lineup for significant stretches of time.
Kelce, despite leading the team in receiving yards on Sunday, has had a disappointing 2024 thus far, with only 15 catches for 158 yards in the Chiefs’ four wins. He’s also 34 — and tight ends, keep in mind, take more wear-and-tear thanks to the fact they also do blocking duty.
Also keep in mind that, since 2018, the Chiefs have played in 18 postseason games — over an additional season’s worth of wear-and-tear on everybody involved. That means not only Kelce, but the rest of the Chiefs squad has a lot of mileage on them.
Perhaps most importantly, this might require Mahomes to start making plays happen with his feet again, should Worthy, Kelce and Hunt not be enough to engineer victories. The last thing the team needs is to get Pacheco back and — at best — have Rice, through some miracle, able to play at the end of the season, only to have their best player limp into the playoffs because he’s been taking hit after hit scrambling for first downs. That has to be a huge fear for both the QB and the Chiefs organization.
Then again, Reid has been awfully good at managing his team’s health — so good, in fact, that they’ve been in four of the last five Super Bowls and the last six AFC Championship games. If anyone can do this, it’s him and the Chiefs. But you can’t say things don’t look awfully grim after Sunday’s win, a win though it may have been.
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