One year ago, it was an easy call for the Kansas City Chiefs to bring back Mike Remmers.
While the loss in Super Bowl LV was a tough one, and Remmers’ own play in that particular game was not at all good, the Chiefs were coming off of another season of dominating the AFC and Remmers had proven himself to be a significant part of that. His versatility and reliability up front were part of what actually saved the Chiefs in the midst of a sinking ship up front on offense.
If you’ll recall, throughout the 2020 season, the Chiefs continued to lose one offensive line starter after another. From Kelechi Osemele to Mitchell Schwartz to Martinas Rankin to Eric Fisher, the line was decimated by injuries and that was after Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and Lucas Niang opted out. Remmers became the glue that would start at left guard and then right tackle for long stretches—fortifying a line held together by duct tape.
This season, however, the decision about how to approach Remmers is not so simple.
Let’s look at the complicated free agent picture of Mike Remmers and what it means for the Kansas City Chiefs’ offseason approach.
This season, Remmers was one of the players ailing this year instead of filling in for them. With the injuries to Niang this season, Remmers would have likely served as the long-term starter outside through the end of the season but he was lost to a knee injury for the second half of the year and never came off of injured reserve once he went on it in mid-November.
In 2020, Remmers started 10 games and appeared in 13. This year, Remmers played in 4. What will that mean for the for the future, then? Let’s take a look at a valuable contributor who might be at a crossroads—at least in Kansas City.