It’s almost August, so it’s high time we turn our attention to fantasy football sleepers, breakouts, and busts for every NFL team. The ADP is per 4for4’s ADP data. We round out the AFC with a look at the AFC West’s four teams. Will the Chiefs end up with a WR1? What about an RB1? Can people leave Brittany Mahomes alone to live her life? Speaking of which, whatever happened to Jackson Mahomes? We answer none of those questions, and more, with the Kansas City Chiefs’ sleeper, breakout, and bust!
Sleeper: Jerick McKinnon, Running Back (RB40, Pick 111 Overall)
Can I offer you a player who was top-ten in targets at his position last season, and who finished as a top-20 RB in five games of his last six games, and the RB1 in two of his last six games last year? What if I told you that you could get him in double-digit rounds in your fantasy football drafts? That’s where we sit with Jerick McKinnon. Nothing has changed about the Chiefs’ running back room since McKinnon took the league by storm down the stretch last season. Pacheco and McKinnon will still form the one-two punch for the Chiefs, with McKinnon handling virtually all receiving work. Double-digit touchdowns are well within his reach this season.
Breakout: Rashee Rice, Wide Receiver (WR81, Pick 225 Overall)
The Chiefs want to rely on Kadarius Toney as their WR1, but he’s reliably unreliable. Whether he’s faking a quad injury on a play or getting in unnecessary Twitter (er… X) slap fights, he is going to be chaos incarnate for a team that doesn’t abide by a lot of chaos ever since booting Kareem Hunt.
Rice reminds me a ton of the 49ers’ wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. He’s an athletic freak despite measurements not reflecting that down to him posting a somewhat lackluster 4.5 40-yard dash, just like Brandon Aiyuk. Rice is a YACBoi with good hands and exceptional open-field moves. Unfortunately, he jumps to catch the ball just a little bit too much for my liking, but that’s okay because his freak athleticism and ball-tracking abilities allow him to sort of just… float… to the football. He also has a preternatural ability to be precisely where the quarterback needs to be. Rice will need strong coaching at the NFL level because he seems to have a lot of lackluster attention to detail and a lack of polish. Luckily, he just needs a bit of spit shine and all of that should come out in the wash. I like him a lot in this draft, and it seems like I might be the highest on him.
Bust: Isiah Pacheco, Running Back (RB26, Pick 74 Overall)
Pacheco is already dealing with a hand injury that landed him on the PUP list to start training camp, and much like Benghazi, Clyde Edwards-Helaire ain’t going away! Throw in my love for Jerick McKinnon, and it’s looking like last year’s rookie fun might not make it to the sophomore campaign. It’s an incredibly crowded backfield, and he played over 50% of snaps just three times (including the playoffs!) last season. Pacheco is primarily a first-and-second-down banger for the Chiefs, as he had just 0.8 targets per game, and touched the ball just 13 times on third-and-fourth down in 2022. Add that all up and he just doesn’t have the profile of a player who has much of a chance on turning you a profit at his ADP.
