The biggest question for the Kansas City Chiefs entering training camp is who will earn the vacant jobs at left and right guard. The team will be without former starters Stefen Wisniewski and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. Wisniewski left in free agency to join the Pittsburgh Steelers and Duvernay-Tardif has opted out for the 2020 season.
As things start to gear up for training camp, right tackle Mitchell Schwartz is feeling very confident in the group of players that Brett Veach has brought in. Whether it’s the rookies or the free agents, Schwartz knows that they’ll all be ready for whatever is thrown their way.
“In terms of new guys, we have guys who have been here and a couple of new guys,” Schwartz said. “That’s something that Coach [Andy] Heck has been extremely good with in terms of moving people around and making sure that throughout training camp and the practice time, he’s cross-training as many people as possible so that when you inevitably do have guys get hurt or something happens, you’re not playing next to someone that you’ve never played with before. Even if it’s drill-to-drill, it doesn’t really matter where you line up, you just kind of get a feel for who is next to you. We’ve got a lot of good players. I think our offensive line is going to be awesome this year. It’s nice to get back into the normal swing of things.”
While Schwartz says the offensive line won’t really get a feel for things until they get into pads, he’s not worried. They’ll be getting just as many padded practices as they normally would. That means there will be no disadvantages as he gets used to someone new working at right guard. Schwartz does seem to have a preference toward lining up next to one of the veteran players on the team.
“Honestly, with the older guys, I think that the longer they’ve played, the easier it is to mesh them together,” Schwartz said. “Obviously, K.O. [Kelechi Osemele] has had an awesome career and [Mike] Remmers has too. Those are guys who understand how to play with people and next to people. That’s something that I’m not too worried about. [Martinas] Rankin played great last year. I was really excited to see him keep progressing. It was a bummer, my injury kind of made him get hurt as well because he had to move to right tackle. I hope to see him healthy. I don’t know what exactly his status is going to be, but I know that he played really well last year. I’m excited to keep seeing that growth. We’ve seen offensive lineman get injured every year. It could be one, it could be five. They’ve always had really good depth here, and that’s what’s allowed us to keep having success.”
Left tackle Eric Fisher seemed to have a preference toward playing next to a veteran player too, so that’s certainly something to watch as training camp progresses. But as Schwartz explained, the depth on the offensive line is what will make this group successful. Offensive line coach Andy Heck will likely have guys playing at a number of different spots during camp, not only to find out their best position but so they’re prepared in the event of an injury.
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