Kansas City wide receiver Rashee Rice has been suspended without pay for the first six games of the 2025 regular season for violations of the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy, the league has confirmed.

Rice’s suspension is the result of his involvement in a six-car pile-up on the Central Expressway in Dallas in March of 2024. The Super Bowl winner was racing another car before losing control and striking the central barrier at high speed. The collision then sent his Lamborghini SUV back into passing cars, causing a chain reaction that left four people in hospital with minor injuries. His case was aggravated by the decision of the occupants of both cars to flee the scene without checking on the condition of anyone else involved in the accident.

The wideout was initially charged with aggravated assault, plus one count of collision involving serious injury and six additional counts of a collision involving injury, but was allowed to play in the 2024 NFL season, and would have featured in another Super Bowl with the Chiefs had he not torn his ACL in the opening weeks of the campaign.

When the case finally came to court, Rice reached agreement with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, pleading guilty to third-degree crimes which resulted in him being sentenced to five years of deferred probation and 30 days in jail as a condition of that probation. Rice was also ordered to pay nearly $115,500 to cover the victims’ medical costs — having already resolved one of three pending civil cases for more than $1m.

The NFL, however, was always going to levy its own punishment for bringing the league into disrepute and, while various suspension lengths were bandied about up to a maximum of 10 weeks, Rice will begin a six-week hiatus immediately, and only be eligible for reinstatement to the Chiefs roster on Monday 13th October. Crucially for KC, that spell keeps on of its most potent weapons sidelined for a tough opening stretch that includes meetings with the Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens and Detroit Lions.