Coach Andy Reid shares thoughts on Joe Thuney trade, future of Chiefs offensive line
In a perfect world, the Chiefs wouldn’t have worked out a trade to send left guard Joe Thuney to the Bears. and he’d be back at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium next season.
But that pesky NFL salary cap makes teams do things they’d rather avoid.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid joined “The Bettor Angle” podcast with former Eagles tight end Clay Harbor (and Cam Smith) and admitted it was tough to part ways with Thuney.
“He’s one of my favorite all-time guys that I’ve coached,” Reid said. “You know that human part of it. You’re around him, and he’s just a good dude. I mean, just all-around a good dude. Tough, dirty, dirty tough. He’s going to do Chicago just heck of a job. I mean, he still can play.”
Reid said not being able to convert the salaries of players into a signing bonus and spread out the financial hit of a contract forces teams like the Chiefs to make difficult decisions.
Reid called managing the NFL salary cap a “nightmare.”
“The thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to be able to manage this cap thing. And it’s a nightmare that way,” he said. “If you’re not going to push a ton of money forward, then you got to manage the cap and try to keep consistent with this whole winning thing. And it’s not an easy thing to manage, and sometimes you have to make these decisions, and it just kicks you right in the butt. They’re tough ones.”
Reid then talked about the future of the offensive line, specifically the left guard position.
When the Chiefs shifted Thuney to left tackle, Mike Caliendo played guard. And in the Chiefs’ regular-season finale, Kingsley Suamataia played the bulk of the loss at Denver at left guard.
“We’re lucky to have some guys that we feel like can step in and play that position, young guys,” Reid said. “And you’ve got to go ahead and you’ve got to take that, whatever risk there is. You’ve got to take it and say, ‘Hey, listen, we’ve done some things in the draft to make sure that we’re in a position where we can make this whole winning thing a possibility.’
“And so we did that last year with Kingsley, and he’ll have an opportunity. Caliendo did a nice job working into that position. So he can compete at that left guard spot. And then it gave us that opportunity to maybe move Joe and move him into a place that he really wanted to come to. And so at the same time taking care of ourselves, we were able to take care of Joe that way.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM.
