Getty Raiders potential draftee Brenden Rice
Jerry Rice is obviously remembered more for his days leading the NFL in receiving and winning Super Bowls with the 49ers than he is for his end-of-career stint with the Raiders, but make no mistake—he was an excellent Raider in his time with the team. In fact, Rice’s 1,211 yards in 2002 still ranks 10th all-time on the franchise’s single-season receiving chart.
Now, with this weekend’s NFL draft looming, Rice’s son, Brenden Rice, is preparing to enter the league after a four-year collegiate career. And at Raiders.com, there is some hope he winds up joining his father in the silver-and-black.
Asked about Rice, team writer Levi Edwards said he could foresee the team adding him as an X receiver to the team’s stable of wideouts.
“I truly believe Brenden Rice is one of the more underrated players in this class …” Edwards wrote on the site.
“Like his Hall of Fame father, he has great route-running abilities and ball-tracking skills. He’s also an inch taller and nearly 10 pounds heavier than his father during his playing days. He also ran a 40-yard dash .2 seconds faster than his father. The Raiders currently have only five receivers on their roster, and I think Rice would be an impressive Day 2 or 3 addition.”
Brenden Rice Racked Up 12 TDs in 2023
Rice caught 45 passes for 791 yards last season for USC, scoring 12 receiving touchdowns, which ranked tied for No. 9 in all of college football. He is not the nuanced, precision player that his father was as a receiver (no one is), but is a more physical player at 6-foot-2, 208 pounds.
He was solid at the NFL combine, even if he did not drastically improve his stock. Rice ran a 4.50 40-yard dash, which was 24th out of 30 wide receivers.
From The 33rd Team’s scouting report: “Rice clearly has traits that will transition effectively to the next level, but his 2023 tape strongly suggests the kind of receiver who will be team and scheme-specific. Rice has excellent size and physical and competitive toughness to his play, but he is not a sudden or explosive athlete, which consistently showed up on tape.
“He was featured significantly in USC’s offense in 2023 as the boundary X, which demands that you separate and win vs. man coverage as a foundation of the position. Still, there will be legitimate questions as to whether Rice can do that at the next level vs. quality corners.”
Raiders WRs Need Serious Help
Now, to be clear, Brenden Rice does not have the talent level of his father. Not close.
He is on an almost mirror-image trajectory as his dad. Where Jerry Rice was an overlooked prospect who played for Mississippi Valley State in college, but was impressive enough to warrant a first-round spot in 1985, Brenden Rice spent two years at Colorado before transferring to USC—two blue-blood football powerhouses—for his final two seasons.
And it might be a nice bit of symmetry if their careers were opposite reflections in another way—with Brenden Rice starting his career in the place that Jerry Rice effectively ended his (half-season in Seattle notwithstanding).
Edwards pointed out, the Raiders only have five receivers on the roster as things stand, and two of those—Kristian Wilkerson and DJ Turner—did not catch a single pass last year. The work was all done by Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers and Tre Tucker. There is certainly room for additions in that group.
Rice could well make an ideal one.
