Kansas City Chiefs: Breaking down the starting left guard competition
By Matt Conner
RYAN HUNTER
Welcome to this year’s surprise entrant.
Ryan Hunter is going to draw endless comparisons to Laurent Duvernay-Tardif because he’s a Canadian import, but that makes me comparable to Abe Lincoln because we both lived in Indiana. But the reality is that Hunter is an impressive developmental prospect on his own who earned interest from several teams but decided on the Chiefs because of their obvious work and success with LDT.
Hunter is a three-year starter at tackle at Bowling Green who was potentially expected to stay in his native Canada to play in the CFL. He was rated as the No. 1 prospect for the CFL this spring, but unfortunately for every team there, he stayed stateside to try out for the NFL despite going undrafted. The Chiefs won the “rights” and Hunter has impressed ever since he arrived, albeit being pushed inside rather than serving as a swing tackle option for the line.
The Pros for 2018
Hunter’s agent(s) read the situation correctly in selecting the Chiefs instead of other teams, because Adam Teicher has word that Hunter was getting first-team reps at left guard. It’s hard to read anything into starting reps in May, but it’s clear that Andy Reid is intrigued at least enough to see what Hunter looks like in that role. It wasn’t too long ago that we saw Parker Ehinger and Bryan Witzmann given those same early looks.
The Cons for 2018
It’s one thing to work in a guy like Hunter in May. It will mean something else if you see the same alignment in August. Hunter, for now, remains a serious project who has obviously showed enought o warrant a closer look, but the learning curve is likely way too much for them to handle.