With the addition of Mitch Schwartz, the Kansas City Chiefs have a shot to be an above average offensive line in 2016, which is something they haven’t had in the Andy Reid era.
Pro Football Focus is ranking all the NFL’s offensive lines heading into the 2016 season. The Chiefs come in at No. 17 — juuuuuust below average.
This is the most important line in PFF’s writeup: “Kansas City’s line is very young, so ideally there is a lot of improvement across the board in 2016.”
Indeed, the Chiefs have one of the youngest offensive lines once again. Mitch Schwartz becomes one of the veterans of the group at 27 years old. Both guard positions and the center will be filled with young players while Eric Fisher is 25 years old with 43 starts.
This means that you can reasonably expect this group to be better in Week 17 than they are in Week 1. Younger players will see bigger jumps of improvement than more established players. At least that’s what the Chiefs hope will happen because Alex Smith gets dramatically better when he’s not pressured. Read that link because it’s something we’re going to be hammering home this year: Alex can improve quite a bit if the offensive line is as improved as we expect.