Kansas City Chiefs fans got some surprising news on Wednesday when starting RT Mitchell Schwartz announced that he was having surgery. Many were expecting that his mysterious back injury, which held him to just six games in 2020, would lead to his retirement. Instead, Schwartz says that the “recovery process isn’t too long” and that he expects to be healthy for 2021.
So how does this news about Schwartz and his health change the outlook for the Chiefs’ offensive line in 2021? We know the offensive line finished the year in a bad place after a disastrous performance in Super Bowl LV. They were absent both starting tackles and had a jumbled interior offensive line because of it.
Schwartz is still under contract next year and when healthy he’s perhaps the best right tackle in football. In each of the four seasons prior to 2020, he was selected as a first or second-team All-Pro. If Schwartz is healthy and playing in 2021 would be a massive break for the team. Sure, the front office could still save $6.1 million by releasing Schwartz, but they’d also have nearly $3.5 million in dead money. Releasing him would be a much easier decision if he wasn’t expected to be healthy.
We already know that the timing of Eric Fisher’s Achilles injury is going to cause him to miss a portion of the 2021 season, if not the entirety of it. Having to find a single starting tackle this offseason is a lot easier than having to find two starting tackles. Schwartz being healthy could also free up money and draft resources for the team to address other positions of need. Once you factor in the expected return of Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, things look even better for the offensive line.
It should be noted that Schwartz still isn’t necessarily a long-term solution at the right tackle position. He’ll be 32 in June and is only under contract through next season, becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2022. That means the Chiefs need to potentially begin planning for a future without Schwartz regardless of his status in 2021. They might have already started that plan when they drafted TCU OT Lucas Niang in the third round of the draft last year.
Ultimately, Schwartz being healthy for 2021 eases the immediate burden on the team. Kansas City will still need to figure some things out for the long haul, but this potentially gives them some more time to mull their options.
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