Why isn’t Hollywood Brown playing for Chiefs against Ravens in Thursday Night Football?

The Kansas City Chiefs open up the NFL season against AFC foes Baltimore Ravens. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, they’ve had to rule out starting wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown for Week 1.

Brown dealing with shoulder injury

In the first week of the preseason when the Chiefs faced the Jacksonville Jaguars, Brown suffered from a shoulder injury, dislocating the sternoclavicular joint. He was taken to a hospital and fortunately did not need to start the season on the short-term injury list, but was ruled out of the opening Game against the Ravens tonight.

Brown is not expected to return for around two more weeks. It’s possible he could be ready to play for Week 2′s matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals, but if not, he should be ready to return in Week 3 to face the Atlanta Falcons.

Brown out, Rice in

With Hollywood Brown out, wide receiver Rashee Rice, along with tight end Travis Kelce, will be the main targets for quarterback Patrick Mahomes. They’ve also got first-round pick Xavier Worthy making his NFL regular season debut.

What is Rashee Rice accused of and why isn’t he suspended?

What’s interesting is that during the offseason, it looked like Rice would be out and Brown would be in, not vice versa. On March 30, Rice was involved in a hit-and-run in Dallas, Texas involving six cars that ended up with two people in the hospital. He’s now facing eight different charges: one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious bodily injury, and six counts of collision involving injury.

In May, Rice was allegedly involved in another incident - an assault at a Dallas nightclub. However, the victim later asked for charges not to be filed against Rice.

As the legal process for the car crash has not been fully carried out yet, Rice has avoided suspension in the NFL...for now. With the league waiting for legal proceedings to conclude before they enact any type of suspension on Rice, he may be able to dodge punishment for his involvement in the crash until 2025. His court date is set for December 9, 2024. If the league decides to investigate the matter further, despite the outcome of the trial, Rice could face either a suspension or a fine, or both.

As for tonight’s game against the Ravens, it’s Rice at WR1. Hollywood Brown, although he has to sit this one out, is confident in Rice’s ability to carry the load. On Wednesday, Rice posted a photo on X of himself in his No. 4 jersey holding up four fingers on both hands, with the caption “Calm b4...”

In response, Brown posted this: “Your performance will feed families tommrow brotha”.

Both posts went viral with Brown’s gaining 2.3 million views and 15,000 likes in just 12 hours.

The Chiefs will face the Ravens at 8:20 p.m. ET tonight at Arrowhead Stadium. You can follow along with our live text coverage, brought to you by AS USA’s Dane Arlauckas.