Florio: Chiefs' Rashee Rice likely to play entire 2024 NFL season | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

you mentioned rice and the question of whether or not he should have been playing and I did a little something last night in the pregame he had 103 receiving yards last night he's clearly their number one receiving option with Xavier worthy being not far behind but rasid rice is the guy other than you know the security blanket Travis Kelce what crystallized for me yesterday and I didn't have a lot of time to delve into it during the pregame show they're not going to do anything about rasheid rice this year he's playing the whole season the only way he doesn't play the entire season would be if he pleads guilty to one or more felony charges between now and the end of the season because at that point the league could say could say they won't commit to this but they could say that is the material change that would trigger the placement of Rashid right on paid leave also known as the commissioner exempt list because they've said we don't anticipate putting on paid leave barring a material change in the case and I asked the question yesterday would a guilty plea be a material change and I got kind of a and I don't have the exact language I'll write something about it later but it's like that would be a factor that we would consider in determining whether to put him on paid leave so there's no trial date so there's no reason to plead guilty to anything the earliest a trial could happen is December based upon some of the actual you know work that I did yesterday calling people and talking to people and trying to figure out where this stands and what could change between now and the end of the season if there's no trial there's no moment where hey are we going to work out a deal in advance or not the one thing that prosecutors could do if they really wanted to screw she rice and I would think they would have done it already you go to him with a deal and you say look here's our offer this is the best deal we're ever going to give you if you don't take this deal right now it's gone forever and we're going to trial on the eight felony counts you got 24 hours to take this deal and from a legal standpoint he'd probably be stupid not to take it depending upon what the offer is but from an NFL standpoint it could put him on the commissioner exempt list while they evaluate and determine what the final punishment would be under the personal conduct policy that's the only way the status quo is changing is if the prosecutors decide we're going to really stick it to this guy and make him an offer he can't refuse and yank that offer from the table and take this thing to trial whenever trial would happen at some point in 2025 well and we talked about this last week Mike but he's very fortunate that that nobody was killed in that wreck but you know what the NFL could have used hen his example too to say this Behavior we can't have this and we're not going to have this and we're not going to tolerate this um but he is playing he's playing well he's their number one receiver no doubt about it and the offense is going to run through him and Xavier worthy all year long so they've got an exciting offense and I like you expect that they'll have him all year and probably have to serve that suspension next year there will be a suspension and I would expect that it's going to be a pretty lengthy suspension I know this is a graphic example but it proves the point as well if not better than anything can when you play Russian Roulette and obviously I do not advise that as a hobby a Pastime or any type of diversion but if you play Russian Roulette and you get an empty chamber no harm no foul right you still shouldn't be playing Russian roulette and if you don't stop it one of these times it's not going to be empty that's why I've believe there should have been something done given the video that we've seen given what could have happened if you don't address that behavior somebody's going to keep rolling the dice somebody's going to keep doing that because hey no harm no foul nobody got got killed Rashid rice is still playing that's the concern that I have but he'll be there and I mentioned it because I think when I said last night it's likely he's going to play the entire season that's really not Pitzer worthy it's not you know I got into somebody's dumpster and pieced together little you know it's it's just kind of like the final bottomline synthesis of everything we've seen everything I've learned everything we've heard he's playing this year and the only way he isn't is if the pro prosecutors decide there's a way to stick it to him let's go let's go ahead and do it because we as the prosecutors want to address the behavior even though the outcome was far better than it could have been hi it's Mike Florio thanks for watching PFT on YouTube hit subscribe for the latest news and Analysis from pro football talk