Even as reigning back-to-back champions, the Kansas City Chiefs have some major questions to answer ahead of the 2024 NFL season. Despite one major contract and two valuable draft picks being invested in the position, the Chiefs’ offensive tackles may have the most to prove when the team arrives for training camp in St. Joseph, Missouri.
From a battle between young draft picks on the left side to the up-and-down story of Jawaan Taylor on the right, let’s take a look at the state of the Chiefs’ offensive tackles.
Joshua Brisco: Starting on the left side, I’d argue that the Chiefs’ left tackle battle is the most important head-to-head showdown of training camp. I assume the team would rather see Kingsley Suamataia perform like a solid day-one starter as the younger and higher-drafted player, but I don’t think that Wanya Morris winning the job would be a terrible result, with one caveat. Morris has a handful of games of starting NFL experience and a full year in the offense — if the Chiefs had no faith in the Morris-Suamataia plan, they would have signed a veteran to make sure they had competence protecting Patrick Mahomes’s blindside. The concern, however, is if either young tackle wins the job by default. If Morris and Suamataia both fail to separate themselves from the other in camp with both struggling against NFL competition, that’s the worst-case scenario. I think it’s more likely that Morris exhibits competence that would at least be comparable to what KC could get from 31-year-old Donovan Smith (who remains a free agent) in 2024 but, ideally for Chiefs, I expect the 21-year-old Suamataia to show enough flashes to win the job.
Jordan Foote: From the moment the Chiefs drafted Suamataia, the team made it very clear that the tackle battle was a full-go. Spending a Day 2 pick — another Day 2 pick — on someone with that blend of athleticism, experience and upside signaled to Morris that he was by no means safe. The rookie represents a lot of what Kansas City values at the tackle position and I lean toward the idea that he’ll end up winning the job in training camp and the preseason.
With that said, some of the discourse surrounding Morris has been odd. While it was noticeable that Smith wasn’t on the field when the 2023 third-rounder played, I didn’t see a crazy dip in performance. Morris had his fair share of good and bad reps, absolutely, but your point about having a year in the offense is legitimate. If Morris is even remotely decent at his job, as he was for stretches of his debut stint, letting Suamataia develop wouldn’t be a bad outcome. Morris played like a rookie tackle for a handful of weeks, so there isn’t enough to go on to completely write him off or hype him up.
Brisco: Speaking of odd discourse, let’s talk about the right side. Jawaan Taylor signed a massive four-year, $80 million deal (with $60 million guaranteed) with the Chiefs last offseason, but penalties were the story of Taylor’s 2023 — including stretches of officiating that seemed to target Taylor. Even if some (myself included) think the refereeing bordered on bizarre at times last year, Taylor has to produce a quieter and more stable second year in Kansas City. That doesn’t mean, however, that he was so bad last year that the Chiefs should be planning on eating a massive salary cap hit and hunting for his replacement.
Taylor has a $24.725 million cap hit each of the next three years, and cutting Taylor wouldn’t save the Chiefs cap space until after the 2025 season. He’s going to be on the team for at least the next two seasons. Now he needs to prove that the Chiefs made a good investment by signing him.
Foote: Taylor isn’t going anywhere, end of story. I hate being that blunt, but we’ve seen time and time again folks attempting to boot him from the team when the guarantee triggers in his deal (and just about everything else) pointed in the opposite direction. This is a big year for him without a doubt, although without the penalties, there’s a much better and easier case to be made for him being a very formidable right tackle.
Elsewhere in the tackle room, nothing truly jumps out. I suppose a battle between Chukwuebuka Godrick and Lucas Niang could provide some intrigue, but neither player will see the field in 2024 if things go as planned. General manager Brett Veach is a fan of former Marshall lineman Ethan Driskell, who’s likely organizational depth entering camp. If he sticks around, though, he could easily replace someone like Niang if he departs in free agency next offseason.
Source link : https://www.si.com/nfl/chiefs/gm-report/chiefs-offensive-tackles-have-plenty-to-prove-in-2024-position-preview
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Publish date : 2024-07-13 09:00:05
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