In recent days, there’s been a lot of speculation about how many games Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice might miss with the suspension the NFL is expected to hand down for a street racing crash in Dallas from March of 2024.
The last hard information was that the NFL was set to hold a hearing on September 30. More recently, however, there have been reports that the league and the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) are continuing to negotiate over the length of the suspension — and if an agreement
is reached, no hearing would take place.
During his Tuesday podcast, ESPN’s Adam Schefter spent a few minutes talking about the situation while discussing fantasy lineups with John Hansen of Fantasy Points.
“The league and the NFLPA is still going over it,” Schefter told Hansen. “And they’re trying to figure out exactly how much discipline is warranted when it would be handed down. And the NFLPA has had a lot of issues this summer — as everybody knows — which I think has probably slowed the process some on Rashee Rice.”
While there have been reports that the league was seeking a suspension of at least 10 games for Rice’s role in the incident — for which he recently pleaded guilty to two charges in exchange for a five-year probation and a 30-day jail sentence — Schefter said that the league’s position wasn’t quite that tough.
“My understanding is initially, the NFL would have liked to suspend Rashee Rice for eight games,” he said. “That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, because it’s sort of like in a negotiation: somebody could ask for a million dollars a year — and the price is going to come in at $500,000 — so it doesn’t necessarily mean a lot where you start out. But I think the league was of the mind right away that it would be eight games.
“I think if we look at the collective bargaining agreement, the baseline suspension for a personal conduct policy violation is six games. And I’m sure Rashee Rice would probably like it to be three or four games. So if we have the league at eight, and the player — let’s just say — [is] willing to take four and the baseline [is] six, where do you think it’s going to come out? Especially when the PA is sifting through its issues and the league wants to exercise its power?”
Still, Schefter doesn’t believe the NFL will get everything it wants.
“I don’t think it’ll be the maximum, OK? My guess is the CBA says six for a personal conduct policy violation. And I know there have been other incidents that haven’t been punished as stringently as six games. But the problem that Rashee Rice has is there was video of it [that] played all over all the evening news — like, everybody’s seen it. And so when you see it, you could see what happened — and it gets the attention it did — I think the league’s gotta take a stand sometimes. So again, I’m operating the assumption it’ll be minimum four [games], possibly six.”
When news of the hearing first broke, it appeared that Rice’s suspension wouldn’t begin until after the fourth week of the season. But if the league and the NFLPA can sort this out before September 5, Rice might be able to get the suspension — however long it is — out of the way at the beginning of the season.
We’ll continue to keep you up to date.
