New development from Rashee Rice’s training camp makes Chiefs’ pending suspension even worse

After an offseason filled with drama — much of it of his own making — Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice can finally focus on football. Rice should receive news of his suspension before the start of the NFL regular season, and the Chiefs have been preparing for life without him.

Still, Rice was a full participant in training camp, earning back the trust of his teammates. Veteran wide receiver Justyn Watson saw a different version of Rice in the Chiefs’ early preseason games. The Kansas City star made specific adjustments to his routes, which can only come with experience. Once Rice gets his head right after a tough offseason, the Chiefs’ offense will be impossible to stop.

“It’s cool to see how he’s taken a huge leap from where he was at the end of last year to where he is now,” Watson said, according to the Kansas City Star. “I think he’s going to be a tremendous leader for our room this year, on and off the court.”

Rice is facing charges stemming from a street racing incident in March that left multiple people injured. The NFL recently released a statement regarding Rice’s pending suspension, saying that they have been “monitoring developments in the case” and that “upon completion of the legal process, the NFL will review the matter under the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy.”

So that’s a lot of nothing. With that in mind, Rice and the NFL are about to be suspended, and the Chiefs already want to know how many weeks they’ll have to go without their top wide receiver.

Whether Rice can learn from his mistakes and develop into a leader in the locker room is up to him. In his first comments since the incident, Rice sounded remorseful for his actions.

“I learned so much from that,” Rice said. “All I can do is continue to mature and grow. This is a step in a better direction for me.”

His next comment suggested that he should have stopped there.

“Accidents happen and stuff like that, but all you can do is move on and just be the same person. Try to be positive so everyone can feel your love and your great energy,” Rice said.

The first step in that maturity should be staying under 100 MPH on the highway, I guess. We’ve seen a lot of young players — and people, for that matter — make mistakes and learn from them. Some even come back better than ever. Hopefully Rice has noticed the flaws in his judgment.

No one is invincible, not even a Super Bowl champion.