Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice just underwent surger, and he won't be able to rehab for the next month.
Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice has been living the privileged, pampered life of a high-level professional athlete, but he’s about to have that taken away.
Rice will be in jail for 30 days for violating the terms of his probation by testing positive for THC, and one of the most immediate ramifications of that is that the receiver won’t be able to continue to rehab from the cleanup surgery he had a week before being sentenced.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk was the first one to make this point, but it’s one of several life-changing events for Rice. He won’t be able to do his job, as he’ll miss both voluntary practices and mandatory minicamp that is set to end June 11.
The no-rehab story line is bigger than it might seem to be. Rehab is a daily process that involves careful monitoring, especially for NFL players like Rice, and that won’t happen if Rice is behind bars. The Chiefs have already backtracked slightly on Rice’s recovery timeline, stating that Rice will be sidelined for two months but should be ready for training cam later in the summer.
Rice will lose multiple weeks in his recovery timeline, and that’s important given the changes the Chiefs are making in their offense with quarterback Patrick Mahomes still rehabilitating from his knee surgery.
There’s another shoe that’s going to drop in this as well. The NFL hasn’t issued a full statement of any kind yet, saying merely that it’s aware of the situation and will have no comment at this time. The Chiefs have followed the league’s lead in this matter, which is the typical procedure for this sort of situation.
The Chiefs won’t discipline him, but the NFL may. The league was a lot of leeway when it comes to how the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy is enforced, and players really have little or no recourse when punishments and penalties are handed down. There’s no word on whether another, shorter suspension might happen, but we’ll hear more about that very soon.
The six-game suspension the league gave Rice last year was a strong message about how the NFL felt about Rice’s actions, and at the very least this situation indicates that the receiver didn’t take his situation all that seriously. Now he’ll have to because he’s losing his freedom for 30 days, and it will be interesting to see how all this plays out on the field when Rice returns to action later this summer.
