Chiefs Interior O-Line May Be the Best in the NFL, With Two Looming Questions — KC Chiefs 2024 Position Preview

The Kansas City Chiefs may have the best interior offensive line in football, but even KC's elite trio has two major questions to answer ahead of the 2024 NFL season.

Oct 12, 2023; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Chiefs center Creed Humphrey (52) and guard Joe Thuney (62) line up against the Denver Broncos during the game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports / Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

The Kansas City Chiefs are frequently discussed as having one of the best interior offensive line groups in the NFL, with Creed Humphrey recently ranked as the league's best center, Joe Thuney as a top-two guard, and Trey Smith discussed as KC's most underrated player. Still, even an inarguable trio has a serious pair of questions to answer for the 2024 NFL season.

Joshua Brisco: Considering this group's excellence at the top, let's get straight to these two big questions. For me, there are two unknowns on the Chiefs' interior, and they're related. First, when is Joe Thuney going to be healthy? Andy Reid sounded confident Thuney would be ready for the regular season, and the ever-consistent veteran could survive without a full training camp as long as he's healthy for the start of the year. Still, Thuney is entering his age-32 season — perhaps a difficult time to rush back into prime condition after missing a significant amount of offseason work. Second, following the departure of Super Bowl starter Nick Allegretti, who's the first backup guard behind Thuney and Trey Smith? The Chiefs seem to have drafted 2024 fifth-round pick Hunter Nourzad to be the eventual do-it-all interior backup, but can he take that job as a rookie? I'll start by expecting the incumbent, 2022 undrafted free agent Mike Caliendo, to get the first nod.

Jordan Foote: The timeline and reporting of the Thuney injury has made for one heck of a roller coaster. Going from working back for the Super Bowl to being "not close" to suiting up highlights just how serious his injury actually was. Even for someone so good, that's a tough ailment for a lineman to come back from. He should be fine and should complement one of the NFL's best trios, but it's something to monitor.
Caliendo is also my pick, given his experience in the offense. With that said, as you hinted at, team scout Cassidy Kaminski was quite honest about Nourzad potentially being an Allegretti replacement. I think training camp could be a time for Nourzad to shine, and if he does, he'll cement a spot on the roster and compete directly with Caliendo for the premier backup job. Nourzad is my pick to eventually replace someone like Smith if he departs for free agency in the spring, which seems like a legitimate possibility given the explosion of the guard market.

Brisco: And now we've arrived at this group's long-term quandary: Who do you pay? With Humphrey's rookie deal also running out at the end of this year and Thuney's 2025 contract sitting at $27 million (with a chance to free up $16 million in cap space with an $11 million dead cap hit), it will be difficult to keep this interior together. Add in linebacker Nick Bolton from the same draft class, and the Chiefs are going to be forced to make some tough financial decisions very soon. Currently, with a softer center market as the guard market booms, I think Humphrey is the best player of his draft class while also bringing the best financial value. There's a very real chance that, of this league-best trio, only Humphrey will be a Chief in 2026.

Foote: I'm totally in line with you there. Getting out of the Thuney contract next year seems a bit too lofty of an expectation, especially if he turns in another good season in 2024. Let's assume he's still on the team for one more campaign after this one, but it almost has to come at the expense of someone else. For me, it's Smith. I think the Chiefs will follow a similar path. Smith is a solid guard, no doubt, but he's the most-replaceable piece of the three, and it only takes one team to spoil his free agent market. I recently covered the idea of a Humphrey extension and, while it could reset the center market, that's entirely deserved and wouldn't absolutely break the bank. Keeping him paired with Patrick Mahomes through both players' primes makes too much sense.

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