Kansas City Chiefs WR Rashee Rice is locked in ahead of the 2025 NFL season, no matter what it might bring.

Rice is expected to receive a suspension at some point during the upcoming season for his involvement in a 2024 multi-vehicle crash in the Dallas, Texas area. He’s looking to put his past mistakes behind him and ensure that his focus is on what it needs to be on heading into the third year of his NFL career.

“Honestly, it’s still in the works,” Rice told reporters of a potential suspension. “My legal team is handling that. All I can do is focus on what I can control right now, and that’s me doing what I do best right here on the field.”

A potential suspension isn’t Rice’s only obstacle heading into the 2025 NFL season. In Week 4 against the Los Angeles Chargers last season, Rice suffered a devastating season-ending knee injury in a collision with Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes. He’s been hard at work when it comes to his offseason rehab, and feels like he might even be in a better spot than he was before the injury.

Chiefs WR Rashee Rice is back to 100 percent and then some after his 2024 knee injury.

The expectation heading into training camp was that Chiefs WR Rashee Rice would participate in full throughout despite his knee injury and looming suspension. Speaking to reporters after practice on Saturday, Rice gave a status update on his rehab and recovery from his knee injury.

“Yeah, I feel 100 percent,” Rice said. “I’m excited to be back out here with the guys, just kind of basically back where I left off at. So, I mean, only thing is, you know, get back on the field and just continue to have fun doing what I do.”

Asked bout how he processed the injury last season, Rice revealed that it was a lot of wait-and-see regarding his actual injury diagnosis.

“I mean, I was just waiting for the doctors to let me know what’s going on,” Rice said. “I didn’t… a lot of people thought it was ACL. It ended up being LCL and a couple of partial tears. So, something that could have been a lot bigger ended up not being as big. And I took advantage of that.”

With an eye to the 2025 NFL season, Rice is continuing to take advantage of every opportunity to be on the field. It’s not just about his injury recovery, but his growth as a human after making his offseason mistake in 2024. In the past, he felt he might have taken this time for granted. Now, he’s savoring every waking moment.

“I mean, I’m locked in,” Rice said. “This is what I do. This is my job. It’s what I love to do. So I mean, even when I’m not able to be out there with my team, still working as hard as I can so I could to be back out there with them as soon as possible.”

Rice feels that his body is in a better place than it was this time a year ago. The knee injury has refined the way he works and trains in many ways that he feels will have a positive impact on his game moving forward.

“I feel better than I felt last year,” Rice explained. “I was able to work on things that I didn’t know I had to focus on in my knee, my right knee. You know, shout out to Dr. (Dan) Cooper. He did a great job on my knee. So, I just got to focus on small things, which helped me improve my game on the field.”

As he watched his teammates scratch and claw their way to Super Bowl LIX from the sidelines, Rice didn’t find himself thinking about what could have been. He thought about what was yet to come.

“I was just thinking about getting to this point right here,” Rice concluded. “It was nothing I could do right there. So, like I said, I’m going to control what I can control, and now I’m back on the field. We’re gonna do it.”