The Chiefs’ outlook for left tackle this offseason — and what it means for Trey Smith
Three days before Super Bowl LIX, the highest-ranking members of the Chiefs’ front office retreated to their New Orleans hotel rooms and turned on the tape. Same as the day before. Same as the day after.
A peek at next year.
On the eve of the ultimate game of the season.
The search for reinforcements — whether through free agency or the draft — preceded the Philadelphia Eagles delivering a knockout blow on Kansas City’s three-peat. The intrigue of this Chiefs offseason did, too.
But that game amplified — not revealed, but amplified — one of the questions that will drive the team’s offseason to-do list:
What will the Chiefs do about left tackle?
Their MacGyver solution fell apart on Super Bowl Sunday, though it was never really all that sturdy — the Chiefs just found a better way to hide it, and their coaching staff deserves more credit for that than it has received.
Joe Thuney is not a long-term option. Kingsley Suamataia, who opened the year as the team’s rookie starter at left tackle, has a future as a guard in this league, perhaps. But the Chiefs are prepared to move on from any notion that he can protect the blindside of superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
D.J. Humphries, a late-season addition, would like to return to KC. But the fact that he wasn’t able to sub into that mess we saw Sunday suggests at least something about what the Chiefs think of that option.
Look, the Chiefs recognize the deficiency they have at left tackle. But they already had recognized the deficiency. It’s not as though they failed to prioritize it ahead of the season — they just failed to get it right. They spent a third-round pick on the position in 2023, and then a second-round pick on it in 2024.
They’ve known it’s an issue.
Still is.
Those resources — picking at the back end of every round and pressed up against a tightening salary cap — provide an excuse for why they haven’t found an All-Pro solution for their left tackle dilemma. But that excuse doesn’t explain why they haven’t been able to at least find a serviceable answer.
And in past years, that’s how Mahomes operated best: with someone serviceable, even if unspectacular. He twice turned Eric Fisher into a Pro Bowler, after all.
But now the Chiefs are stuck in the search again.
Solutions, they aren’t obvious. According to scouts I’ve spoken with, a below-average left tackle class awaits in this spring’s draft. The Chiefs aren’t expecting top-tier talent to fall to them a No. 31 in the first round. And the free-agent options are aging, expensive or both.
When teams find top-end left tackles they tend to keep them, either through long-term contracts or with franchise tags. Which means the left tackles who do reach free agency will be overpaid. That’s how this works. No team would prefer to spend less at left tackle. It’s a premium position, and everyone is aware of that.
The Chiefs will either act in desperation — the way they overpaid for Jawaan Taylor or turned Thuney, for most of his career a guard, into the highest-paid player at his position — or they’ll kick this can down the road yet another year by trying a one-season fix.
Those are the options.
That’s where the Super Bowl — and the entire season preceding it — can serve as an educational guide. Or at least some reinforcement.
The Eagles having their way in the trenches has produced a sentiment that the Chiefs had a terrible offensive line. So bad, in fact, that it might go toe to toe against the group that prompted Mahomes to run the length of five football fields during a Super Bowl in Tampa.
That sentiment is wrong.
This wasn’t that group — not even close.
It’s the type of pressure that affected Mahomes most: It came from the edges.
This season, the lowest percentage of quarterback pressures against the Chiefs came from the interior of their offensive line, according to data tracked by PFF. When you saw Mahomes under duress, only 28% of the time could you point a finger toward left guard, center or right guard as the reason for it.
The problems instead came from three places:
Left tackle.
Right tackle.
And quarterback.
(That’s right. PFF also puts the blame on the quarterback for creating his own pressure, and PFF blamed no quarterback more frequently for this during the 2024 regular season than Mahomes. He had 40 such pressures; Denver’s Bo Nix was second, with 39.)
Some 57% of the pressure in the Chiefs’ pocket came from the edges. That was the highest percentage in the NFL.
And more to the point ahead of an important offseason, it’s that type of pressure that seems to bother Mahomes most — the type in which he’s most likely to scramble outside the pocket, or, as we saw on Super Bowl Sunday, the type that might make him look to scramble before he even needs to move.
Back in 2022 — when Mahomes lost star receiver Tyreek Hill but won an MVP and led the league in yards and touchdowns, and was 1.3 yards per attempt better than now — he was actually pressured more than he was this season.
Really. And it was a lot more.
The difference? Far fewer of those pressures back then — about 11% fewer — came from the outside.
Mahomes was able to navigate the pocket better when, even in the instances in which it breaks down, the edges were still locked up. Which, to be clear, is unmistakably harder. The tackles often play on islands. It’s why they’re paid handsomely.
It’s why the Chiefs’ search hasn’t been — won’t be — easy.
Still, the conclusions to draw from those facts are not exclusively about left tackle. It’s also a commentary about what else faces the Chiefs this offseason: Trey Smith is set to become the highest-paid guard in football this summer, and the Chiefs already have the highest-paid center and a very highly paid left guard.
Is solidifying the interior of their offensive line the best use of limited resources?
The Mahomes data leans toward no.
We saw that offense this year, until the Chiefs moved Thuney to tackle in Week 15. It struggled. By his own belief, Mahomes thought he struggled. Because as good as his interior linemen were, and they were really good (and Smith is very good and very deserving of a payday), there was still no solution on the blind side.
The move to Thuney wasn’t it, either. It was admirable, to be sure. But the Chiefs revamped their offense, covering for the fact they had a guard playing left tackle for the first time in his nine-year career. They designed plays to get rid of the ball quicker.
It worked. Then the Eagles covered those quick-release routes, and, well, uh-oh. The Chiefs’ offensive line couldn’t protect for an extended time.
They still were missing an answer. The same answer they were missing all season, despite using every possible formula they had to find it.
Now, again, it’s the answer they must find this offseason.
At left tackle.