Chiefs’ Tackle Expectations

Laddie Morse

When you have one of the best, if not the best, interior offensive lines in the league, your expectations for your Tackles is basically to not mess things up so your interior can do their job. Right? Of course, right. While one Tackle led the NFL in penalties last year the other was nowhere near as good as the IOL so he’s no longer with the team. In fact, he was here on a one-year deal and played himself out of a job, essentially. Now the LT position is being battled out between a second year player and a rookie.

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ArrowheadPride

In an article for ArrowheadPride by Pete Sweeney called, “Chiefs have 3 of the top 10 interior offensive linemen in the NFL” he quotes a poll taken by ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler who polled “the NFL’s top executives, coaches and scouts to create positional rankings:“

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“… voting showed that the Chiefs have the best

interior offensive line in the league, with all three

of their starters — left guard Joe Thuney, center

Creed Humphrey and right guard Trey Smith —

in the top 10.”

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Sweeney goes on to show the ranking of:

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4. Joe Thuney, Kansas City Chiefs – Highest ranking: 2 | Lowest ranking: Unranked

7. Creed Humphrey, Kansas City Chiefs – Highest ranking: 1 | Lowest ranking: 8

9. Trey Smith, Kansas City Chiefs – Highest ranking: 4 | Lowest ranking: Unranked

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So, if K.C. has the best IOL — and they do — then what should we expect from our Tackles?

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The answer may surprise you but I believe it’s close to: “not much.”

If QB Patrick Mahomes can avoid the rush up the middle of the field, and it looks more and more like he’ll be able to do that, then all that’s left for him to do is scramble to his left or to his right, whichever way is less congested, then when he gets to the flat on which ever side of the field he’s on, he can hit his open WR or TE or RB… whichever is open and available.

Sometimes, it can lead to a Mahomes scramble up the field like this (0:22):

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When things break down over the middle of the offensive line, then running the ball is near impossible and no team has to respect that aspect of your offense. The your QB ends up having to make plays like this:

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Adam Schwinn – Photo Credit

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That of course is a pic from the Chiefs Super Bowl LV loss back in February of 2021 a 31-to-9 loss. It’s hard for me to think of any games when the Chiefs didn’t score any touchdowns in the Mahomes era, but that’s exactly what happened that day. That’s often what happens when your IOL is not stellar.

So, what am I saying about the Tackle position? I’m saying it’s less important than the interior positions.

I was listening to 610 Radio this week and one of their disc jockey’s said they think Kingsley Suamataia is going to walk into the Left Tackle position. You read that right,,, Kingsley Suamataia is going to walk right into a prime role with the Chiefs.

My questiona is: does it really matter? Sure, we want the best LT possible and many think it was the fault of Eric Fisher being out that made the game so tough for Mahomes back when they lost to the BUcs in Super Bowl LV. I would beg to differ. Sure, having both RT Mitchell Schwartz and LT Eric Fisher out in that game contributed to the Chiefs downfall. However, with the Chiefs interior looking like this, I can see why they lost:

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73 Nick Allegretti G

67 Daniel Kilgore C

62 Austin Reiter C

61 Stefen Wisniewski G

77 Andrew Wylie G

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While it may not be fair to signle out any particular player, let’s just admit that these guys were not good enough. On the other hand, neither were the Tackles who were available. While I believe Mike Remmers was the starting RT the man starting at LT was Andrew Wylie if my memory serves me correctly. Here were the Tackles available to the Chiefs otherwise:

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79 Yasir Durant T

74 Martinas Rankin T

75 Mike Remmers T

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The point is, the Chiefs current IOL including LG Joe Thuney, OC Creed Humphrey, and RG Trey Smith, provide excellent protection and run blocking support for Isiah Pacheco so that the Right Tackle and Left Tackle positions aren’t nearly as important as they used to be, and are now.

What do you think?

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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