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Sidney Rice faded into the end zone, leaped over a smaller Green Bay cornerback, and hauled down an acrobatic touchdown catch.As Associated Press sports writer Jon Krawczynski suggested, the fourth-quarter play before last week's bye was the first truly impressive play by a Vikings receiver this season, and it's no surprise that the 21-year-old rookie was the one to make it.Rice finished with six catches for 75 yards and a touchdown in the loss to the Packers, and it's looking like he is emerging as the Vikings' go-to threat in the passing game."Sidney is progressing, I think, better than any rookie receiver that I've seen," veteran receiver Bobby Wade said. "Especially for a young rookie. He's able to make plays. He's able take the learning in the classroom and apply it on the field."Ask teammates what they think of Rice, and his practice habits are always the first thing to be mentioned."He's a guy who works hard on the practice field, which is really tough to find," Wade said. "He's just really trying to get it every time he has an opportunity.""I enjoy practice. They call me hyper a lot of times," Rice said with a smile. "But I do enjoy it. I've been enjoying it since college. It's not a bad thing. It's something that helps you. Anything that helps you more, I'm for it."Krawczynski added that Rice is noticeably humble, which as we know isn't always the case with wideouts."He doesn't know it all; he doesn't think he knows it all," head coach Brad Childress said. "But he tries to get better each and every time he comes out here. He learns a little something different."The more he learns, the closer he will get to becoming the show-stopping, double-team attracting receiver the Vikings have yearned for since Randy Moss was traded three years agn a corps full of unknown rookies and journeymen like Wade and Robert Ferguson, the 6-4 Rice stands out from the crowd. But that hasn't stopped him from bonding with his teammates on a struggling offense."I have a lot of great veterans that don't mind helping the rookies," Rice said. "Some places you go, they're fighting for their position or whatever. Here, with them, we feel like a family and we're going to help each other and do whatever it takes to win."But as Krawczynski stressed, like the rest of a Vikings pass offense that ranks 27th in the league, Rice still has a long way to go. That said, he he is one of the few players, along with fellow rookie Adrian Peterson and veteran running back Chester Taylor, who has actually shown big-time potential."I'm excited to see him progress each week and obviously the more opportunities he gets, the more he'll shine," Wade said. "I think he's ready to step up to the plate and be everything we want him to be."
