The Kansas City Chiefs are once again Super Bowl Champions. With back-to-back championships and three in the past five years, they are certainly the team to beat in the NFL. However, that also means that they will have a target on their backs for years going forward. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots went nearly a decade between Super Bowl wins after they won their third. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs must hope they don’t have to wait that long.
In order to stay atop the NFL, the Chiefs need to be looking to better their roster as the other 31 teams in the NFL are almost certainly attempting to do the same. One of the areas in which they can stand to improve is on the offensive line, particularly at tackle.
Whereas interior offensive linemen like Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, and Nick Allegretti were all top-five blockers on the team, tackles Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor were average at best. Smith, in particular, had worse PFF blocking grades than any of the other Chiefs starting linemen.
In order to improve and protect Mahomes, Kansas City should replace Smith with a soon-to-be-former Green Bay Packers left tackle.
Should the Kansas City Chiefs Replace Donovan Smith with Green Bay Packers Tackle Yosh Nijman.
The Chiefs signed Donovan Smith to a one-year $3 million contract to protect Mahomes’ blindside in 2023. As the Super Bowl victory proves, he played well enough to get the job done. However, Smith will be on the wrong side of 30 in 2024 and allowed 53 total pressures in 2023, the third most in his career and the third-worst mark in his career. He had not allowed that many pressures since his second year in the NFL.
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