Nearly a full week has passed since the Kansas City Chiefs walked away from Los Angeles with their fourth win in four games this season, a Week 4 victory over the Chargers in their first divisional contest of the year. In that time, the team has also been waiting and wondering what will happen to wide receiver Rashee Rice after watching him leave that same game with a leg injury.
Typically the details of an injury, major or minor, are made known in the hours after a game—if fans have to wait at all following the broadcast. With potentially devastating injuries, the rumors emerge quickly that point to test results the next morning that typically confirm the unfortunate diagnosis. That's what made this week so unusual for Rice.
Then again, Rice's injury was quite unusual to begin with. In a single play. Patrick Mahomes turned the ball over on a first half interception thrown to Chargers corner Kristian Fulton and then also took out his top wide receiver attempting to tackle Fulton as he ran the ball back. Mahomes fell awkwardly on Rice and he immediately left the game, making it clear something serious had happened.
Following the game, however, the Monday morning tests only gave way to a need for more tests. By the middle of the week, "Twitter doctors" for lack of a better term began to describe the lack of information as a good thing—that no diagnosis provided hope of a better result than the "torn ACL" rumors that emerged following the game.
On Thursday, Andy Reid addressed such optimism with a dose of reality and said the team had to wait because the swelling was simply too great to get an accurate read on the damage done to the leg.
Finally on Friday, Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer broke the news that Rice is looking at potential damage on two fronts. Here's his post:
One thing we didn't get to in TNF postgame (b/c of OT): Chiefs WR Rashee Rice is expected to have his knee scoped next week after the swelling goes down, per sources. There's fear of ACL damage, and also PCL damage.
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) October 4, 2024
Docs will know more after going in and set a plan from there.
In case that post is unreadable for some reason, it reads, "One thing we didn't get to in TNF postgame (b/c of OT): Chiefs WR Rashee Rice is expected to have his knee scoped next week after the swelling goes down, per sources. There's fear of ACL damage, and also PCL damage. Docs will know more after going in and set a plan from there."
That means the fog is still there because the swelling is the same. It also means the timeline of next week is still in place as well. That said, at least we have an idea of the long road to recovery that might be ahead for RIce and that the team can start to mentally wrap their heads around it even as they hope for a better outcome.