It has not been the best week for Rashee Rice. The Kansas City Chiefs wideout faced clean-up knee surgery last week before being sent to Dallas County Jail on Tuesday May 19.
Under normal circumstances the surgery would ensure that Rice misses two months of action, which would allow him to return to the field around mid-July, just in time for the start of training camp around that time.
However, given that he will be in jail for the first month of his rehabilitation period, this given timeline may not be as accurate as otherwise hoped.
And speaking on the Pat McAfee show on May 20, ESPN’s Adam Schefter asserted that there was not prior knowledge on Rice’s side of his imminent trip to jail, so the recovery time explicitly did not factor in Rice not being able to physio and other physical activities to get ready for training camp.
In fact, Schefter claims that there was “no way” the 26-year old would have gotten said surgery had he known he would be going to jail.
“He did not know he was going to be going to jail for thirty days. If he did, there is no way that he would have had the knee surgery that he did last week…He’s currently in a jail cell in Dallas County Jail coming off the knee surgery he had last week that will sideline him two months.”
“That’s two months normally with the attention, care and rehab that you’re going to get. I don’t know how this works where you go get knee surgery and then you’re in jail.”
For most people, rehab is important but not as much as time. If one imagines, of course, that Rice is not forced to put undue physical pressure on his knee during his time in jail.
But for professional athletes the equation is not the same. They require high levels of daily assistance with their injuries in order for them to come back as quickly and fully-healthy as possible. It goes without saying that the Philadelphia native will not be receiving anything resembling the requisite treatment needed during the next 30 days.
How Long Could Jail Delay Rice’s Recovery?
Even specialists would struggle to accurately predict exactly the kind of delay not having his medical and strength and conditioning coaches around him might have on the injury.
Intuitively, this should not really cause him to miss more than an extra month at most, but if Rice re-injures himself during his time in jail, that could timeframe could end up being far longer.
Training camp started on July 21 in 2025, almost exactly two months from now. So him missing an additional couple of weeks at a minimum would be almost expected at this point.
Chiefs fans should remain broadly optimistic, however. Rice is not a rookie, nor a second or third year player looking to make a big leap. He is already an established wideout who has excellent, pronounced chemistry with quarterback Patrick Mahomes. He would likely benefit from, but hardly is in desperate need of a large training camp.
And at this point it would appear that something would need to go truly, tragically wrong for him to end up missing the Chiefs’ season opener against the Denver Broncos on September 14.
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