It’s been a long road traveled for Kansas City Chiefs OT Mike Remmers in the NFL.
He first signed on with the Denver Broncos as an undrafted free agent in 2012. He’s since played for eight different teams over the span of nine years. Six of those eight teams cut him from either their 53-man roster or practice squad.
Like every player in the league, Remmers has seen his highlights and lowlights throughout his career. Unfortunately for Remmers, one of the most glaring lowlights of his career came at the biggest possible stage in Super Bowl 50. Remmers was playing right tackle for the Carolina Panthers in 2015, a season during which the team went 17-1 en route to the Super Bowl.
The Cam Newton-led Panthers squared off with the Peyton Manning-led Broncos in Super Bowl 50, but the story of the game wasn’t the quarterbacks, it was the vaunted Denver defense led by Von Miller and Demarcus Ware. Remmers was tasked with fending off the eventual Super Bowl MVP in Miller and the results were disastrous.
Remmers surrendered three sacks, including two strip-sacks and seven additional pressures. His team would eventually succumb to the pressure, losing 24-10. It’s a performance that Remmers has often tried to put in his past, but on the eve of another Super Bowl— one in which he’s set to start in place of injured Chiefs LT Eric Fisher— this poor performance from five years ago is a bit magnified.
“Yeah, it’s unfortunate that we didn’t win the game,” Remmers told Chiefs Wire’s Charles Goldman on Tuesday. “I’ll think of that year very fondly, though. I had great teammates and I had a great team and we didn’t finish the job there and that’s unfortunate. You know it was five years ago, just like all the wins and losses I have in my past, it’s in my past. I feel like I’ve learned from that game, learned from all the experiences I’ve had, just helping me develop into the player that I am today. I’m not the same player that I was five years ago. It’s a different year, I’m a different player. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t win it. I’m just concentrating on what I can do right now, what can I do today to help me on Sunday. That’s kind of been my focus this entire season.”
Remmers is right too, he’s not the same player that he was five years ago, he actually is in the midst of the best season of his career. He was thrust into starting action in Week 6 and has only missed one game since. He hasn’t allowed a sack all year and only 19 total pressures, mostly protecting the right side of Patrick Mahomes.
But in Super Bowl LV, he’ll face an entirely different challenge, flipping over to protect the blindside of Mahomes. He’s played left tackle during the course of his career with over 800 career snaps there. He played 17 snaps there in relief of Fisher in the AFC title game, but he’ll have to play a full 60 minutes there against a tough Bucs defensive front.
“I think that Coach Reid and Coach Heck have done a great job,” Remmers said. “Just throughout the season, throughout training camp, throwing guys in different scenarios, different situations. Playing different positions throughout the week, just in case if a situation were to happen like that, we would be ready for it and be able to go out and do our job and be able to trust the guy next to us. Playing different positions and just rotating guys in and out, that’s just something that we’ve done throughout the year.”
It may seem like Remmers has a lot to prove, from his Super Bow past to the inflammatory comments from Bucs OLB Jason Pierre-Paul. The truth is, Remmers doesn’t need anything extra to motivate him during this game. He knows the challenge that his team faces in Tampa Bay after facing them back in Week 12.
“They’ve got a tremendous amount of skill on that line,” Remmers said. “They’ve got a lot of stars. They’re very fast, physical, downhill players. Not even just the front guys, the linebackers fly around and make plays. It’s going to be a great challenge for us on Sunday.”
He’s not discounting that his unit will be under an increased amount of pressure and scrutiny, however. The only player in his unit who was set to start this season was center Austin Reiter. He knows that the offensive line performance will be a big key to this game, but he’s relying on a piece of advice from Eric Fisher in order to not let that fact get out of hand.
“That’ll definitely be part of it,” Remmers said. “We’re not the only guys on the field. Fish (Eric Fisher) always said every week, ‘Our goal as offensive linemen is to go out and do our jobs so that the people around us can do their jobs.’ So it’s a very important group out there. We’ve been working really hard and busting our tail all year for this moment. We’re finally here, so we’re just super excited for this game.”
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