🚨 What secrets are boiling in the Chiefs’ offense as Rashee Rice rises? 🚨 The Chiefs offense has been burning like hell, with Mahomes running wild and Kelce making waves, but now a familiar figure returns, bringing with him a mental strength forged through adversity.Ng1

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster growled out loud in the locker room. Teammate Xavier Worthy couldn’t keep a smile off his face.

Sure, it was nice that the Chiefs won 30-17 at home against the Detroit Lions on “Sunday Night Football.”

However, these weren’t reactions to that. This was about next week.

Just wait till next week, both Smith-Schuster and Worthy said.

“I’m so excited, man,” Smith-Schuster said. “I’m so excited.”

“Oh, man. Everybody’s been waiting for it,” Worthy said, beaming in front of his locker. “It’s what the hype is about.”

The Chiefs picked up their biggest win of the season Sunday night. They dominated an opponent that looks like it might be the best team in the NFC, and outphysicaled a team known for playing bullyball of its own.

However, in a celebratory postgame locker room, the Chiefs’ offensive players didn’t want to talk about that. Instead, they wanted to dream about what’s ahead.

And that’s a vision of what it’s going to look like when No. 1 receiver Rashee Rice returns from his NFL suspension next week.

“That dude is stronger, faster, smarter. He’s got it all, man,” Smith-Schuster said, speaking after seeing Rice around the Chiefs’ facility recently. “Those weeks he’s been off and away from us, he’s been working so hard.”

They’ve all waited so long for this moment.

It goes back to last season. The Chiefs had Rice, Worthy and free-agent signing Hollywood Brown on the roster with the hopes of giving quarterback Patrick Mahomes the best outside playmakers he’d had in a few seasons.

The fantasy, though, lasted all of one snap.

In the Chiefs’ first 2024 preseason game against Jacksonville, those three were on the field together for exactly one play when Brown suffered a shoulder injury that kept him out for months. Just a few weeks later, Rice was hit with a season-ending knee injury, further delaying the trio’s official debut.

It was going to take place at the start of this season, finally. Then, Rice settled with the NFL on a six-game suspension stemming from an offseason road-racing incident in Dallas.

That means 14 months of patience will finally come to an end on Sunday when the Chiefs (3-3) play host to the Las Vegas Raiders (2-4).

“Shoot, we finally get to see all of the big three that y’all wanted to see,” Worthy said. “So looking forward to it.”

Rice’s reinsertion into the lineup was always going to give the Chiefs a boost.

However, here’s what makes the imagination stretch even more: In the past three weeks, the Chiefs have played some of their best offense in years.

Those first two losses this season, back when Mahomes was scrambling often to lift a disjointed offense missing its top receivers? That seems so distant now.

After scoring 37 points against Baltimore, then racking up 7.6 yards per play last week against Jacksonville, Kansas City diced up Detroit to the tune of 6.1 yards per play Sunday before three kneeldowns brought the average down.

K.C. was dominant all night — and the numbers showed it. NFL’s Next Gen Stats indicated the Chiefs generated 11 explosive plays (10-plus-yard rush or 15-plus-yard pass) against the Lions, marking the second consecutive game that the team had done that at least 10 times.

In their previous 20 games, the Chiefs had only one instance in which that happened.

“When those guys up front are blocking like that,” Mahomes said, “I have weapons everywhere I can throw the football (to).”

Lions, Chiefs brawl after Kansas City’s 30-17 win on Sunday night

And suddenly, the season-long numbers — even without Rice — are showing signs of an offense not only trending to be one of the NFL’s best. But also one that potentially could compare favorably to the Chiefs’ otherworldly teams of the late 2010s.

Case in point: Through six games, per TruMedia, the Chiefs are posting 2.77 points per drive — their best mark since Mahomes’ first year as a starter in 2018.

Also, K.C. has now scored on 52 percent of its possessions this season. That’s also the top mark since 2018 … and a better percentage than any of the last three teams that all had their seasons end in the Super Bowl.

“You could just see the last three games progressively getting better and better every game,” Worthy said. “So we’re just gonna keep trying to stack them days.”

And now the Chiefs are set to get back the dynamic Rice, a physical player who thrives as one of the NFL’s best with yards after catch.

Mahomes kept his comments brief about Rice afterward (“I’m very excited,” he said with a grin. “I’ll just leave it there”). However, even he couldn’t help but head to social media to hint at the anticipation that Rice will soon be back.

An hour after the win, Mahomes posted three letters to his X account: “EGE.” It’s a reference to one of Rice’s favorite quotes: “Everybody’s gotta eat.”

The Chiefs’ receivers have adopted that as their season-long mantra, vowing to be just fine with whoever steps up in any given game as long as the team succeeds.

“We understand your week is different each week, but that don’t change how you come to work. That don’t change how you play,” Brown said. “Play hard for each other, and EGE, ‘Everybody’s gotta eat.’”

Just how much the Chiefs will be feasting offensively in future weeks remains to be seen.

This much is certain: If the offense continues trending like this, the Chiefs should quickly become one of the NFL’s most feared teams while pursuing a fourth consecutive Super Bowl appearance.

After the game, however, a close-knit group of receivers didn’t seem willing to settle for that.

Next week, the third amigo will return. It’ll be a regular-season spectacle for the Chiefs more than a year in the making.

“We’ve all been through a lot of stuff individually,” Brown said of the three. “So it’s a moment you’re not going to take for granted.”

In true “EGE” fashion, Smith-Schuster said he couldn’t wait to see it himself.

And that was even if that meant he had to watch it all while waiting his turn on the sideline.

“To see those three guys on the field, ” Smith-Schuster said, “it’s gonna be very dangerous.”