The Baltimore Ravens shocked a lot of people when they decided to trade tackle Orlando Brown Jr. to the Kansas City Chiefs. Baltimore has had plenty of problems when dealing with Kansas City over the last three years, losing three straight games to Patrick Mahomes and company.
After their Super Bowl LV defeat at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Chiefs went into the offseason with offensive line as a major weakness. The team signed both Joe Thuney and Kyle Long, but now with the addition of Brown, they have one of the better offensive lines in the league.
During his introductory press conference with Kansas City, when asked about what he thought of the fact that out of all of the teams in the NFL, the Chiefs were the organization that he ended up with, Brown said he was “surprised”.
“I was really surprised, man, I was really surprised. I didn’t see it coming. You know what I mean if you would have asked me when I requested my trade where I would have been, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you then but I was very surprised to be here and I’m just glad that they made the move. I definitely think I’m the guy that they want, the guy that they need.”
Kansas City being the team that the Ravens did business with in this situation was unexpected. The Chiefs are a direct competitor to Baltimore in the AFC, and will be much improved with the acquisition of Brown. However, the Ravens most likely took the trade package that they liked the most, not taking into account who was offering it. It probably stung a bit to send Brown to a rival that they’ve been unable to defeat recently, but Baltimore was doing what was best for themselves.
Brown clearly didn’t see a move to Kansas City coming. He experienced first hand the struggles that the Ravens had with the Chiefs, but now that he’s on the other side of the budding rivalry, his job will be to extend Kansas City’s win streak. It’s never an NFL team’s goal to make a competitor better, but it seems like Baltimore was thinking about the future of their franchise, and didn’t overly consider where they were trading Brown to be a huge factor.