Kansas City Chiefs Could Replace Donovan Smith with Green Bay Packers Left Tackle in 2024

Kansas City Chiefs Could Replace Donovan Smith with Green Bay Packers Left Tackle in 2024

The Kansas City Chiefs are once again Super Bowl champions. With back-to-back titles and three in the last five years, they are unquestionably the team to beat in the NFL. However, this means they will have a bullseye on their back for years to come. Following their third Super Bowl victory, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots went nearly a decade without winning another. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs must hope they do not have to wait too long.

To remain at the top of the NFL, the Chiefs must look to improve their roster, as the other 31 teams will almost definitely do as well. One of the areas where they have room for improvement  is on the offensive line, particularly at tackle.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ interior offensive linemen outperformed their tackles.

Interior offensive lineman Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, and Nick Allegretti were all top-five blockers on the team, but tackles Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor were ordinary at best. Smith, in particular, got lower PFF blocking grades than any of the Chiefs’ starting lineman.

In order to enhance and protect Mahomes, Kansas City should replace Smith with a soon-to-be ex-Green Bay Packers left tackle.

Should the Kansas City Chiefs replace Donovan Smith with Green Bay Packers’ tackle Yosh Nijman?

In 2023, the Chiefs signed Donovan Smith to a one-year contract worth $3 million to protect Mahomes’ blindside. As seen by his Super Bowl triumph, he performed admirably. Smith, on the other hand, will be on the wrong side of 30 in 2024, having allowed 53 total pressures in 2023, the third most in his career and the third-worst. He hadn’t been subjected to that many pressures since his second season in the NFL.

Due to his diminishing performance, the Chiefs may be better off letting Smith leave in free agency this offseason. With $23 million of cap room to deal with in 2024, Kansas City would probably search for another bargain in free agency to avoid using the majority of  their space on one player at one position.

However, this is not because Nijman was bad. The Packers committed to a youth movement in 2023, which meant that young second-year players and rookies received more playing time than veterans at numerous positions. Because of his lack of playing time in 2023, Nijman might be a solid free agent signing at a low cost.

Yosh Nijman can play both right and left tackle well.

In 2019, the Packers signed Nijman as an undrafted free agent. After spending the majority of the season on their practice squad, he was added to the active roster in 2020. He did, however, receive limited playing time, participating in only 14 offensive plays throughout the season.

However, in 2021, Nijman was thrust into a nearly impossible predicament. All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari was already out for the season due to a ruptured ACL, so the Packers opted to replace him with Pro Bowl left guard Elgton Jenkins. In a terrible turn of events for Green Bay, Jenkins tore his own ACL midway through the season.

Enter Nijman, who has been assigned with defending Aaron Rodgers’ blindside for the rest of the season. For a third-year undrafted free agent with no NFL game experience, Nijman performed admirably. He allowed 20 pressures in 590 offensive snaps and committed only three penalties.

Nijman switched to right tackle in 2022 owing to Bakhtiari’s 11-game return. He played 200 snaps at left tackle and 555 at right tackle that season, surrendering 28 pressures, five sacks, and a PFF pass blocking rating of 74.4.

As previously said, Nijman lost playing time in 2023 because the Packers preferred to use their younger guys. Now that they’ve established themselves and Nijman is an unrestricted free agent, he’ll most likely play elsewhere in 2024.

Given his background and ability to play both tackle positions well, Kansas City should call.

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