The Kansas City Chiefs have been busy coping with the loss of their star receiver Rashee Rice since he suffered a potentially season-ending knee injury against the Chargers in week 4. Although there had been multiple shouts regarding his injury being an ACL, Andy Reid has finally offered an update after his successful arthroscopic surgery on Oct 7th.

Providing us with some clarity about his timeline of recovery, Reid shared, “His surgery was not ACL. It was the posterolateral corner. There was damage. It’s probably the same result, though, as you’d get time-wise for an ACL. It takes a while for that to come back. He’ll get into his rehab and get rolling on that as we go here.” Considering his return timeline coinciding with an ACL recovery, this update doesn’t really offer any boost to the Chiefs’ hopes of having him back sooner rather than later.

But it does mean Rice has avoided any damage to his ACL or meniscus that could have extended his recovery period. When it comes to ACL injury, players mostly remain sidelined for a minimum period of 9 months. However, this might not be the case for Rice as he enters a three to four-month recovery plan. This means Rashee will not be playing any part in the Super Bowl either if the Chiefs make it in February.

Well, Reid wasn’t the only one who offered an update on Rice post-surgery. As the Chiefs WR took to his Instagram to share a post of his knee being strapped with a brace and captioned, “Rise & Shine.” Before his unfortunate injury, Rashee was on his way to have a break-out season as he led the NFL with 23 receptions.

With him ruled for the remainder of this season, Rice joins the indefinite list of Chiefs offensive injuries. Elsewhere, WR Hollywood Brown will remain absent until the end of 2024 as he continues to recover from his shoulder injury. While RB Isiah Pacheco doesn’t have any timeline of recovery after damage to his fibula in week 2. Behind their absence, the Chiefs had other stars stepping up to help them continue their unbeaten start to the season.

JuJu Smith-Schuster turns unlikely hero as Chiefs offense copes without Rashee Rice

Losing Rashee Rice remains a huge setback for the Chiefs’ ambitions this season, as OC Matt Nagy shared, “He was obviously a big part of that game plan, and he always is.” But for now, the Chiefs have to tweak their offense a bit in order to help other receivers perform the way Rice did before his injury.

“We feel like we have a lot of great receivers on our roster, guys with experience, guys with different talents and then it’s our job in prep wise, to put them in the greatest position.” Well, that unlikely hero came out to be Smith-Schuster, who had previously played for the Chiefs before joining this season to bolster their offense.

And playing his first game back in red and white, Smith-Schuster had an incredible day as he finished with seven catches for 130 yards. As the Chiefs continued their winning run against the Saints last week. Even Andy Reid was full of praise for the way JuJu performed, “JuJu’s a good football player. He’s been a good football player for a long time.”

But the question is can JuJu or other receivers in the Chiefs roster continue to be reliable as they hunt for their third Lombardi that hasn’t been done before? Considering the way the Chiefs have managed to cope till now, it doesn’t seem they would have many problems if Patrick Mahomes continued to throw the way he had been all season.