How long could Chiefs' Rashee Rice be suspended? Here's what NFL history shows.

Pete Grathoff, The Kansas City Star on Jul 17, 2025

Published in Football

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The NFL had been waiting for criminal charges to be resolved before issuing punishment to Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice for his role in a six-car freeway crash in Dallas in March 2024.

That shoe dropped Thursday as Rice was sentenced by a Dallas judge to 30 days of jail time and five years probation.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who first reported the news, said “Rice ... is likely to receive a multigame suspension at some point during the upcoming 2025 season.”

How harshly could the NFL punish Rice?

The NFL issued this statement to The Kansas City Star: “We have been closely monitoring all developments in the matter which remains under review.”

Former NFL Network reporter James Palmer said last year that Rice would be suspended for “half the season at least.”

That would seem to be on the high end of a potential NFL punishment. When a player has been convicted of a DUI, the typical suspension is three games. Those suspensions are for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.

Rice’s case is unique in that he wasn’t known to have used alcohol and/or an illegal substance before the crash.

Any suspension for Rice would be for violating the NFL’s personal-conduct policy.

Dallas police said Rice reached a top speed of 119 mph before the crash that resulted in four civil cases against him.

When he was with the Jets, cornerback Brandin Echols was suspended for the first game of the 2023 season because of a 2022 car crash that injured another driver. Bleacher Report said a police report showed he was driving 84 mph in a 50-mph zone. Alcohol was not mentioned in that crash.

Another driver said he was partially paralyzed as a result of that crash, the New York Post reported.

In 2020, New York Giants kicker Aldrick Rosas was jailed for misdemeanor hit-and-run and driving on a suspended license in California. ESPN said Rosas was involved in a T-bone collision. He was released by the Giants and suspended four games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

Former Bears linebacker Lance Briggs in 2007 was charged by Chicago police with leaving the scene of an accident after crashing his Lamborghini and leaving it on the side of an expressway. He was never suspended by the league.

One big difference: Briggs’ case didn’t involve other drivers.

Past Chiefs suspensions

At least two former Chiefs players were suspended by the NFL for DUIs.

Defensive end Jared Allen missed the first two Chiefs games of the 2007 season because of two DUI charges in Johnson County. That suspension differs from Rice’s, in that Allen was penalized for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.

Ditto for cornerback Sean Smith, who was suspended for three games in the 2015 season for a DUI.