What a strange offseason this has been for discourse about the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive line.
It began with the NFL Draft when the Chiefs attempted to convince anyone who would listen that the team was in the market for an offensive tackle. It never passed the sniff test.
The Chiefs invested top 65 selections in the past two drafts in current starters on the left side of the offensive line. The organization also came into the offseason with the second-highest-paid offensive guard (by average annual
value), right guard Trey Smith, and the highest-paid center in the league, Center Humphrey.
Sure, Jaylon Moore remains an unknown at right tackle, but he’s the same player the Chiefs signed to a two-year, $30 million contract a calendar year before.
Nothing about the unit suggests a dire need for an offensive tackle. Using a top-15 selection to upgrade the position would have been foolish, given the other needs on the roster.
General manager Brett Veach acknowledged as much post-draft.
Unfortunately, those pre-draft conversations appear to have influenced the post-draft analysis. This is a strange time of the NFL calendar as teams aren’t taking the field for organized activities, training camp is still weeks away and news is hard to come by.
The result? Ranking season, baby!
I say this affectionately. We all have jobs to do, and if your job is to make content about the NFL at this time of year, well, it ain’t easy. Rankings and lists are a byproduct of this stretch in the calendar.
Anyway, this brings us to an interesting takeaway from some of those recent lists: Apparently, the general consensus is that the Chiefs’ offensive line stinks.
Wait, what?
You read that right. At least three national publications have ranked the Chiefs’ offensive line among the bottom 10 in the NFL heading into the 2026 campaign: ESPN (Mike Clay), Sharp Football Analysis and Fantasy Points.
I have a tough time comprehending such a ranking. Josh Simmons just put together an impressive rookie campaign. Smith is viewed as a top-10 guard in the game. Humphrey is probably the best center in the league. Kingsley Suamataia took a massive step forward last year after his move to guard.
The one real question along the line is Moore, and it’s not as though he’s a complete unknown. There are plenty of units across the league with far bigger liabilities along their offensive lines than Moore.
I’m not alone in my confusion about these rankings. 4 for 4, and USA Today ranked the Chiefs’ offensive line as one of the top 11. No other team has a greater standard deviation in offensive line rankings among these five publications than Kansas City.
But why? What’s leading to such a wide gap in how this unit is viewed? I honestly struggle to understand the other viewpoint. I pride myself on seeing multiple sides of arguments, but this is one I can’t understand. The Chiefs’ offensive line should be a strength of the team and arguably the offense’s identity.
Anything less would be a vast disappointment. The Chiefs’ actions reflect as much.
The team paid running back Kenneth Walker III as if he’s one of the best at his position in the sport. That isn’t possible if the Chiefs boast a bottom-10 offensive line.
Patrick Mahomes is coming off a serious knee injury, and he probably won’t be 100 percent by the start of the season. Putting him behind a bottom-10 offensive line would be organizational malpractice.
The league is shifting right before our eyes, and the big guys up front are as important as they’ve been in the past 15 years. I’m supposed to believe head coach Andy Reid — a former offensive lineman in his own right, and a coach known to place huge emphasis on the position — either neglected the group or failed to see the issue?
Probably not.
If the national publications are correct and the Chiefs have a bottom-10 offensive line, we’re likely in for another long season in Kansas City. Thankfully, I don’t foresee that being the case. This should be a top-10 unit in the league.
Veach’s pre-draft smokescreen must still have everyone else fooled.
