Various aspects described herein relate to techniques for managing downlink control information (DCI) in wireless communications (e.g., 5G NR). In an aspect, the method includes receiving a radio resource control (RRC) message, identifying a transport block size (TBS) based on the received RRC message, receiving DCI on a downlink channel with the DCI including a resource assignment, identifying a modulation order using a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) in an MCS field of the DCI, where the size of the MCS field is one bit or two bits, and calculating a coding rate based on at least the identified TBS, the identified modulation order and the resource assignment.