The Kansas City Chiefs are a team built around the passing game. Their head coach, Andy Reid, has made his career off being a pass-first offensive mastermind. Their best player, Patrick Mahomes, is arguably the best quarterback we've ever seen through the first nine years of his career. The problem the Chiefs face going into the 2026 season is that their top two pass catchers both come with major questions. Their Hall of Fame-caliber tight end, Travis Kelce, will turn 37 this season, and nobody knows how much gas is left in his tank. Their best wide receiver, Rashee Rice, is a certified knucklehead.
Rice is undoubtedly talented, putting up 79 receptions for 938 yards and 7 touchdowns as a rookie in 2023. However, since then, things have gone off the rails for Rice. He was involved in a reckless car crash that injured several people in March of 2024 and then had his own quarterback blow out his knee the following season. There was another incident where Rice punched a photographer, and recently, he was forced to serve jail time after breaking his probation by testing positive for THC (marijuana).
It was also recently reported that Rice had a "clean-up" surgery on the same knee he injured in 2024 after having some inflammation in it. It is probably safe to assume that jail is not the best place to rehab a knee that you just had surgery on. All of these things make it almost laughable that Rice recently said he wants to make Jaxon Smith-Njigba money after JSN signed a four-year, $168.6 million contract extension. There is simply no way the Chiefs can trust a player with Rice's character and judgment issues who is still dealing with knee issues with a major contract extension. Brett Veach should not even consider it.
The Chiefs cannot plan around Rice anymore
Some Chiefs fans have called for the Chiefs to just cut Rice. His lack of judgment makes him unreliable, and he has certainly given the Chiefs a ton of negative press over the past couple of years. He has minimal trade value at this point, as no team is going to give up premium draft picks for a player in Rice's position. However, the Chiefs get nothing if they release him. So if re-signing him is not an issue, trading him is unlikely, and cutting him gets K.C. nothing other than maybe some positive PR, there is only one other option that makes any sense: squeeze every last yard of production out of Rice while he's still on a cheap rookie contract.
Yes, the Chiefs could look to reunite with Tyreek Hill, who has even more knee issues and concerns than Rice, or trade for someone like Kayshon Boutte, but realistically, neither will likely be as good a player in 2026 as Rashee Rice. So, instead of rewarding Rice with the privilege of picking where he gets to play this season and potentially getting a new contract with another team, why not just get whatever you can out of Rice on the field without any fear of overusing him? Could heavy use this season lead to more knee issues down the road? Not your problem if you are not re-signing him.
The passing game still depends on Rice
Yes, there could be more suspensions in Rice's future, but the NFL discipline wheels turn slowly, and the Chiefs need production this season even if they add another proven NFL veteran wideout. So instead of trying to make 165-pound Xavier Worthy a workhorse or overloading your 36-year-old tight end, feed the 26-year-old, 206-pound knucklehead and let him take the wear and tear, and then you can go looking for a long-term number one wideout option next offseason.
What's the worst that could happen? That they use Rice so much that he has more knee issues? He does something else stupid and gets suspended midway through the season? In either of those scenarios, at least you got some production out of him for a little while and saved the wear and tear on guys like Worthy and Kelce while you could. Maybe Rice produces so well that they could tag him and trade him for a mid-round draft pick to a team that is desperate for a wideout after the season. Or maybe he produces so well that even if they just let him walk, he signs a big enough deal elsewhere that they get a decent compensatory pick out of it.
Rashee Rice may be a knucklehead and an embarrassment for Chiefs fans. He may be completely unreliable and not have a future in Kansas City, but he's still the most talented wideout on this roster, and the Chiefs need to get every last ounce of production out of him while they can. Then next year he can be some other team's headache, and they can try to find someone more reliable to pair with Patrick Mahomes for the next 5–10 years.
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