Should the Chiefs Re-Sign Their 2024 Pro Bowl Guard?
As the summer rolls on and the 2025 NFL season approaches, the front offices of all 32 franchises are seeking to build or maintain a roster that will take them to postseason glory. For the Kansas City Chiefs, the single biggest roster priority has undoubtedly been overhauling the offensive line. It makes total sense; the entire world watched Patrick Mahomes run for his life against the vaunted Eagles defensive line during the slaughter at Super Bowl LIX. For a franchise that is contending for the Lombardi Trophy every year, keeping its elite franchise QB safe and comfortable is pivotal.
The Chiefs’ roster moves in the wake of the Super Bowl have all reflected this philosophy of protecting Mahomes. They used their first-round pick in the draft this year to select an offensive tackle, in the hopes of patching up the issues they’d been having on the left side of the line for all of 2024. They doubled down on trying to solve the problem at left tackle by also bringing in former Niner Jaylon Moore. Meanwhile, the Chiefs traded away First Team All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney, mainly to get younger and cheaper at the position, hoping that they could fill the void left behind with the depth on their roster. Center is locked down by the best player in the league at the position in Creed Humphrey, and right tackle remains stable under the polarizing efforts of Jawaan Taylor.
That leaves us with what to do about the right guard spot. Currently, it is held by Trey Smith, who earned Pro Bowl honors for his work there this past season. Kansas City used its franchise tag on Smith this offseason, scratching some heads with how much cap space would be used up on a one-year deal with an offensive guard. However, it is wise to believe that the tag is merely a placeholder until the Chiefs can get a long-term extension signed with Smith, which they have until July 15th.
The reason it is wise to believe that this is merely a financial placeholder that will be replaced by an extension is that it would be utterly insane for Kansas City to do anything differently. Finding a quality replacement for a Pro Bowler guard in Smith would be an already difficult task, even if they didn’t have to deal with filling an All-Pro-sized hole at the same position on the other side of the line. Good offensive linemen are hard to come by in this league and are worth more than their sizable weight in gold, especially for a team that rides or dies by the efforts of its quarterback. Smith is young, and his play is solid, with the potential to get even better. I’m not saying that he is the second coming of Will Shields, but I am saying that the Chiefs would not have had Will Shields in the first place if they didn’t pay the man long term.
The money that would go towards a franchise-tagged Smith could easily be broken up by a contract extension. This is incredibly important for a Chiefs organization with a number of great young players going into contract years and not a lot of cap space to actually pay them. Maintaining a dynasty like that of the 2020s Chiefs is unfathomably hard work that will require making many tough decisions about who to pay and who to wave goodbye to. When the top of your job description has “protect Mahomes” underlined and circled, the last person you want to wave goodbye to is a starter who can reliably do that.
