"Oh no! Rashee Rice is suspended for six games. He's off my draft board." - A fantasy football manager destined for a sixth-place finish.
Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh. But in light of the Rashee Rice suspension announcement, there was a lot of hand-wringing on social media. The gut reaction to a player getting suspended is that they should move down your draft board. But that isn't necessarily the case here.
Before we dive into where he should be drafted, let's take a quick look at the timeline of events from this offseason and how his Average Draft Position (ADP) has changed.
Arrest, Bargain, and Suspension
In the spring of 2024, Rice was involved in a high-speed crash in Dallas while driving around 120 miles per hour. Rice fled the scene of the crime. Days later, Rice met with the police and issued a public statement taking full responsibility for the crash. About a week later, Dallas police issued an arrest warrant for Rice. Rice turned himself in the following day and was briefly jailed. Less than a month later, Rice was under investigation again, this time for punching a photographer at a club in Dallas.
The optics were awful. And most people paying attention to the situation expected the league to drop the hammer on Rice. But a lengthy trudge through red tape allowed him to avoid suspension, and he started in Week 1 of 2024. However, he tore his LCL in Week 4, missing the rest of the year.
Going into the 2025 season, expectations were that the NFL investigation would be pushed as far out as possible, possibly even into 2026. And many early drafters took aggressively bullish stances on Rice. In post-NFL Draft best ball drafts, Rice was going in early Round 4. By July 2025, concerns about a potential suspension had begun to wane, and he was regularly being drafted in Round 2.
And then, on July 17, 2025, in a plea bargain stemming from the car crash, Rice pleaded guilty to two felonies. Rice was sentenced to five years of probation, 30 days in jail, and ordered to pay the victims' out-of-pocket medical expenses. And as you'd expect, his ADP plummeted.
Shortly after that, the NFL scheduled a disciplinary hearing for September 30. This caused his ADP to fall even further. A mid-season hearing without an expectation of a suspension duration was a nightmare for fantasy managers to get a read on. The hearing was set for after Week 4. There was speculation that the NFL was pushing for a ten-game suspension. Ten games (excluding their Week 10 bye) starting in Week 5 would mean Rice wouldn't be eligible to play until Week 16, which is typically the fantasy football semi-finals in most leagues. This would be the worst-case scenario for anyone who drafted him. You'd get him for a few weeks to start the year and then hope to plug him in if you were lucky enough to make the semi-finals.
Rashee Rice ADP Changes
4for4 has an ADP visualization tool that shows Rice's change in value over this offseason. And as you can see, the July 17th story of his in-season hearing pushed him from Round 2 down to Rounds 5-6.
But now we have some clarity. On August 27, Rice accepted a six-game suspension that will start in Week 1. That means Rice will miss the first six games of the season and be eligible to return in a Week 7 home game against the Raiders.
While a lot of people will have a visceral reaction to the six-game suspension, this is a much better situation than the alternative (a ten-game suspension kicking in midseason). We now have clarity, which we previously lacked. Although reports indicate that Rice is fully healed from last year's injury, this also gives his knee an extra six weeks to recover. And his suspension definitely won't impact your fantasy playoffs.
So now that we have clarity on the situation, where should he be drafted? Well, it's a bit more complicated than you might expect.
Rashee Rice is a WR1 in Fantasy Football
Working with small and cherry-picked sample sizes is a dangerous game, but Rice was gradually introduced throughout his rookie season. His per-route metrics were mind-blowing over the first ten weeks of the year. We saw the looming breakout. But he was in a part-time role, making him unreliable in fantasy football. And then, in Week 12, he became a full-time player. His breakout performance came in Las Vegas, where he caught 8-of-10 targets for 107 yards and a touchdown. From that game, through the playoffs, and until he tore his LCL the following year, his per-game pace was blistering.
Over the past 13 games, he's averaged 9.1 targets, 7.2 receptions, 82.8 yards, and 0.46 touchdowns per game. Over a 17-game season, that pace would track for 155 targets, 122 receptions, 1,407 yards, and 7.8 touchdowns. To put that into perspective, 309.5 PPR fantasy points over the course of a full season would have trailed only Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, and Amon-Ra St. Brown last year. Rice's role in the Chiefs' offense has allowed him to develop into an elite WR1, averaging 18.2 fantasy points per game since he became a full-time guy.
Had Rice not been facing a looming suspension, the second-round price tag we saw early in the offseason would probably be what you'd see. Given the small sample size of his elite play, increased target competition, and return from injury, our staffers have him as the WR13 in per-game projections at 15.27 points per game. However, once you remove his six games off the top, his projection falls to 161.59, which would be 48th among wide receivers. Basic math might tell you that Rice should be drafted as the WR48 in drafts, but it doesn't really work that way.
Now, if you're in a league where your commissioner requires you to put Rice in your starting lineup for the first six weeks, then sure, he should fall deep into drafts. But no one is in a league like that. You aren't taking "0" for Rice's first six weeks. You're putting another player in his slot.
Let's run some quick numbers to illustrate this point.
Replacement-Level Wide Receiver
Let's assume you're in a league with Footballguys standard roster settings: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 2 FLEX. That means that your ninth-round pick will likely be in your starting lineup in Week 1 if you draft Rice. Considering this will likely be the WR4 from your draft, let's go back to Footballguys' projections as a baseline. Of the wide receivers we have projected from WR37-WR48 (WR4 range), you can expect an average of 12.2 PPR points per game. We'll use this as our "replacement-level player."
Here's what a WR4 and Rashee Rice would look like in a wide receiver slot over a full season.
(12.2 x 6) + (15.27 x 10) = 225.9
or
(Replacement-level WR in Weeks 1-6) + (Rashee Rice in Weeks 7-17 minus a bye) = WR21
This Frankenstein receiver, which we can patch together with a suspended Rice and a WR4, projects as our WR21. That's better than Courtland Sutton, Garrett Wilson, and Jaylen Waddle.
And that doesn't even fully capture the upside case. What if Rice continues producing at the level he did before his injury from the time he became a full-time player?
(12.2 x 6) + (18.2 X 10) = 255.2
Now we're looking at a projection akin to our WR8! This production would be sandwiched between our projections for Puka Nacua and Drake London.
And what if you hit on that replacement-level wide receiver? You could theoretically get more than 12.2 points per game if you hit on a late-round sleeper, pushing that edge even higher. I won't illustrate with an example, but you get the point.
In addition to using a replacement-level receiver through the first six weeks, it's also important to recognize that Rice's suspension is coming at the best time of the year for fantasy managers. Through Week 6, only six teams are on bye. Injuries aren't as prevalent early in the season. That means the player pool for potential starters will be much deeper than it will be midseason. And we all know that Weeks 15-17, when you're trying to win a championship, are the most important.
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