Kansas City Chiefs: Grading each offensive position in 2019

Interior Offensive Line

Now we get to some turnover.

The Kansas City Chiefs enter 2019 without three offensive linemen who started at least two games for them in 2018. The biggest loss is center Mitch Morse, who left for a big contract with the Buffalo Bills. A second-round pick out of Missouri in 2015, Morse had started at center from day one, but the last two seasons, he was limited to just 18 games due to injuries.

The Chiefs also let walk Jordan Devey, a five-year veteran who started two games in replace of the injured Morse last season before suffering a season-ending injury. He signed a one-year deal with the Raiders.

Jeff Allen is the other departure. Allen, in his second stint with the Chiefs after spending two seasons with the Texans, appeared in ten games in 2018, starting four times at left guard. The 29-year-old remains a free agent.

Along the interior, it looks like the Chiefs are aiming to go with Andrew Wylie at left guard, Austin Reiter at center, and Luarent Duvernay-Tardif at right guard. Cameron Erving, who started 13 games last season, also returns. And the Chiefs added Nick Allegretti out of Illinois in the seventh round of the draft. He figures to compete for playing time as a back-up in 2019.

https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1116035924067069952

That’s a solid, if completely unspectacular, group. Wylie enters his third year by switching positions as he started ten games at right guard last season. Reiter enters his second year with the Chiefs with a clear path to replacing Morse as the team’s starting center after starting four games at the position last season.

Then there’s Duvernay-Tardif, the best of the group, who only played in five games in 2018 before going down with a season-ending injury. In the past two seasons, he’s played in only half the games. For this group to be successful, the former sixth-rounder out of McGill needs to play a full slate.

Grade: B-

Duvernay-Tardif’s return is most welcome, but he needs to quash the questions about his health. Wylie and Reiter are two rather unproven players lining up next to each other, so it will be interesting to see how they progress as the season moves along. Erving and Allegretti provide quality depth.

Compared to the end of 2018, with the loss of Morse but the return of LDT, this group hasn’t digressed, but it hasn’t improved, either. It’s merely above-average.