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The Kansas City Chiefs have a new starter at left guard this Sunday with second-year offensive lineman Nick Allegretti earning his first career start.
Last week, Allegretti played 65 snaps at LG after an injury to Mitchell Schwartz forced Mike Remmers to fill in at RT. Now, with Schwartz being made inactive for the first time in his career, Allegretti has coincidently earned the opportunity to make a start at LG.
The Chiefs drafted Allegretti out of the University of Illinois in the seventh round of the 2019 NFL Draft. He played sparingly in his first season in Kansas City, with most of his snaps coming on special teams. In the few games that he did earn an offensive snap, it was as an extra blocker on heavy formations. In fact, Allegretti’s first offensive snap came in Denver, back in 2019.
“Yeah, my first snap up in Denver, that was definitely a good time,” Allegretti told reporters on Thursday. “But I don’t know, just kind of the way I was raised growing up playing football—if you’re going to make a mistake, make it flying around, make it fast, make it physical. So, mistakes are going to happen throughout a football game, there’s a lot of snaps. The one thing I can control is my effort, my physicality, so that’s what I have. The rest, preparation and all that, that comes as I continue to grow. But I know that I can play as hard as I want, or as hard as I can, and be as physical as I can, so that’s what I have.”
One thing that Chiefs OL coach Andy Heck has preached to his unit is preparation. Allegretti has taken that to heart and his preparation has him feeling confident now that he’s out there on the field. Part of that confidence comes from going against the talented Chiefs defensive line group during practice.
“I think that just, the D-line that we have here, an incredibly talented group, so being able to go up against them day in and day out at practice and competing with them,” Allegretti said. “Chris (Jones) is an incredible player and Derrick Nnadi is an incredible player, so being able to get those reps against them and slowly getting to have some success or learn some things from them has been huge.”
Allegretti overcame some butterflies last week and was mostly operating on auto-pilot. This week he’ll have a chance to learn from his Week 6 tape and make some improvements as he faces a talented Broncos defensive front.
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