At this point, let's call Kingsley Suamataia's rookie season what it is: a redshirt campaign.
When the Kansas City Chiefs decided to relegate him to the inactives list in Week 11 during a loss on the road in Buffalo, it was a signal that the rookie was so far from being a positive asset on the field at this stage of his NFL career that the Chiefs weren't going to let him anywhere near it. In fact, they even allowed rookie free agent Ethan Driskell to take his place among active players.
The Chiefs hammered the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, one week later for Suamataia in 2024 when they decided to sign veteran tackle D.J. Humphries.
Everyone knew he'd need some time to learn the position, but a redshirt season was not in view for anyone in Chiefs Kingdom.
At this point, the Chiefs are cashing in their chips to have Humphries man the position, who is returning from a torn ACL dating back to last season with the Arizona Cardinals. The free agent has been medically cleared to play once again and the Chiefs made quick work of getting him under contract once it was made public that he was ready to return.
The move to sign Humphries now gives the Chiefs someone to supplant or at least work with Wanya Morris in terms of placement on the depth chart—a veteran who has been around the league for several seasons and is a plus pass blocker who will likely slide in a starter's role once he's ready.
Going forward, then, it makes sense that the Chiefs will go with D.J. Humphries and Jawaan Taylor as the two starting offensive tackles up front. From there, Morris looks like the swing tackle with Driskell behind him. And that leaves Suamataia on the outside looking in. Given the fact that the Chiefs moved Joe Thuney outside on Friday against the Raiders instead of letting him back in for Morris, who was clearly struggling through pain. That places him at the bottom of the depth chart.
Now, Suamataia isn't going anywhere, so let's not run too far with this notion. Instead, it just means the Chiefs are likely going to treat this as a redshirt season for Suamataia, their second-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft out of Brigham Young. After trying their damnedest to hand over their LT1 role to him—by giving him every opportunity in rookie minicamp, OTAs, training camp, and more—Suamataia is now sidelined until further notice.
This is a frustrating development considering just how well he seemed to be taking to the position up front during the summer months. From there, the Chiefs even installed him at LT1 for the regular season but that experiment lasted 2 weeks before asking Morris to take over.
As for Suamataia's future, if the sky was the limit before, then the sky is still the limit in the future. The only problem is that the floor here is so much lower than anyone could have anticipated. Going forward, it's going to be a scary proposition to allow him to learn on the fly simply because so much can go wrong in the name of the learning curve.
Will a redshirt season do the trick? The Chiefs are certainly hoping that's the case. Give Suamataia a chance to learn the lingo, work with his teammates, alter his technique, gain strength with trainers, and come back next summer ready to compete knowing the game will have (or should have) slowed down for him. That's the most anyone can hope for.