Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice was booked into Dallas County jail Tuesday afternoon after testing positive for marijuana, a violation that lands him a 30-day sentence and forces him to miss critical offseason workouts.
Rice is scheduled for release June 16, which coincides with the start of organized team activities and mandatory minicamp for the defending Super Bowl champions. The positive THC test breaches the probation terms Rice accepted following his guilty plea last July to two third-degree felonies stemming from a reckless highway racing incident.
The receiver was driving a Lamborghini Urus at 119 mph in March 2024 when he executed multiple aggressive maneuvers around traffic on a Dallas highway, striking other vehicles in the process. Prosecutors documented that after the crash, Rice failed to check on injured motorists and fled on foot. He received five years of probation with a deferred 30-day jail sentence, plus a six-game suspension from the NFL for violating the league's personal conduct policy.
Just weeks before last season kicked off, Rice had publicly committed to moving forward from the wreckage. "You have to learn from things like that," he told reporters during training camp. "I've learned and taken advantage of being able to learn from something like that."
The setback interrupts what looked like a modest recovery. Rice hauled in 53 receptions for 571 yards and five touchdowns across eight games last season, hampered at times by a knee injury. Since being drafted in the second round in 2023, he has accumulated 156 catches for 1,797 yards and 14 scores in 28 career appearances, including contributions to Kansas City's Super Bowl championship run following the 2023 season.
The Chiefs have not publicly responded to the incarceration.
Author James Rodriguez: "Rice's inability to stay clean while under court supervision suggests the infrastructure around him isn't working, and thirty days away from camp puts real dent in his recovery trajectory."
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