Kansas City Chiefs host defensive end Eric Lee for visit

The Kansas City Chiefs brought in defensive end Eric Lee on Tuesday for a free agent visit as they search for Emmanuel Ogbah’s replacement.

It’s not going to be easy for the Kansas City Chiefs to replace their overall sacks leader on the season, but there’s no way around the loss of defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah to injury. The team just has to work through it.

The Chiefs have begun to kick the tires on potential replacements with word that the team brought in free agent Eric Lee for a visit on Tuesday.

Ogbah went down late in the Chiefs shocking loss on Sunday to the Tennessee Titans with what turned out to be a torn pectoral muscle. He was scheduled for surgery immediately and was deemed out for the rest of the season. Given that he was the team’s sack leader with 5.5 overall, it’s a major loss in the team’s pass rushing rotation. For Ogbah, he was playing very well on a new team in a contract year, so there’s a major loss for both person and team.

The Chiefs must move on this year, however, and checking in on Lee is a part of that effort. Lee has bounced around the NFL ever since he entered the league as an undrafted free agent with the Houston Texans in 2016. Since then, he’s spent time with the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and Detroit Lions. In his only serious playing time in the NFL, he did put up an impressive 3.5 sacks in 6 games as Bill Belichick and company figured out how to best utilize Lee to get after the passer.

The Chiefs still have a nice rotation of players given the presence of Chris Jones, Frank Clark, Tanoh Kpassagnon, and Alex Okafor, so even though Ogbah’s loss is big, other players are certainly capable of filling the bulk of that void.

Lee, 25, was most recently employed in early October when he was released from the Lions practice squad.