Chiefs Expected To Sign OT Geoff Schwartz

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Kansas CIty Chiefs are visiting with and are likely to sign, former Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle Geoff Schwartz today.

From Schefter:

Schwartz was drafted in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers. Last March, he inked a one-year deal with the Vikings.

Schwartz played only 160 snaps last season for the Vikings and he played right guard. Though it was a small sample size, Schwartz was graded well by Pro Football Focus and finished the season with a +5.8 grade.

In 2010, Schwartz played over one-thousand snaps for the Panthers. He started out playing RT but was then moved to RG. PFF graded him well at both positions and he finished the year with a +19.2 mark.

He was projected to start at RG again for the Panthers in 2011 but was placed on IR in August with a right hip injury.

Oddly, despite his strong play in 2010, the Vikings saw him more as a backup in 2012. I did find this from the Vikings’ official site. This was from October of 2012.

"“We wanted to be able to take a look at Geoff (Schwartz) yesterday and get him some game action,” Vikings Head Coach Leslie Frazier said on Monday. “Yesterday allowed us to do that, and we want to be able to do it periodically. We felt like that was a good game to do it and it worked out pretty good to get him, I think he had about 11 snaps, so we got some good game-action tape that we couldn’t get in the preseason to evaluate him and we’ll see where it goes from there.”So, how did Schwartz do in his first extended regular season action as a Viking?“In those plays, I thought he did a good job, good enough to where we feel comfortable if something were to happen, we could get him in there,” Frazier said. “But there are some other things we want to be able to see from him, but we’ll continue to evaluate him as we go forward.”Frazier stopped short of saying the right guard competition was suddenly open for competition. Brandon Fusco is the starter there, and the second-year player out of Slippery Rock is playing well so far. More than illustrating displeasure in Fusco’s performance or trying to shake things up along the offensive line, the Vikings goal in rotating Schwartz in seems to be exactly what Frazier stated – just to get a look at a player who hasn’t seen much action on the offensive line since signing in Minnesota."

Considering what Adrian Peterson did last year, nobody can say the Vikings were making mistakes along their offensive line. Still, every time Schwartz has played, he has played very, very well.

This could be a steal of a free agency signing for the Chiefs. KC has some holes to fill at guard. Ryan Lilja has retired and Jeff Allen was the weakest link on the line in 2012. Schwartz could push Allen and possibly even stat for the Chiefs in 2013. He also gives KC some flexibility as he can swing over and play tackle as well.

We also can’t rule out that the Chiefs are thinking of trying Schwartz out as a replacement for Eric Winston at RT.

Schwartz probably won’t cost much and seems to be a pretty good player. Hopefullyt he Chiefs can get this done.

(h/t to AA reader and twitter follower Thomas (@sportnutny).