The Kansas City Chiefs will have a new left tackle tasked with protecting Patrick Mahomes’ blind side. According to Chiefs beat writer for Chiefs Digest, tackle D.J. Humphries will make his debut start for Kansas City in their Week 14 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday Night Football.
Humphries signed with the Chiefs on November 22 after he became medically cleared to resume football activities. Kansas City was reportedly monitoring the situation and pounced once he earned medical clearance.
Humphries was an all-pro left tackle during his time with the Arizona Cardinals (2016-2023) and made the Pro Bowl following a spectacular 2021 campaign. The Chiefs are hoping he returns to that all-star former for the remainder of the season.
Kansas City’s Achilles heal of the season has been the tackle positions. Although Jawaan Taylor has managed to hold the fort at right tackle, the left side’s been a considerable issue. Rookie Kingsley Suamataia began the season as the starter but got benched after struggling against Trey Hendrickson and the Cincinnati Bengals pass rush in Week 2. He was replaced by second-year pro Wanya Morris, who struggled in every game this season.
Mahomes was sacked 32 times (10 in the last two games) this season – the most in his career – the Chiefs hope adding Humphries to the lineup will solve their woes along the o-line. During his presser on Thursday, Mahomes told reporters about what he’s seen from Humphries in practice.
“You see how talented he is. The physical gifts are there. It’s been cool to watch him interact with the other guys, too,” said Mahomes. “You can tell he’s smart. He’s willing to teach guys, which is big in that room. We have a lot of young guys there, and so I’ve been very impressed. I’m excited for him to get more and more work with more and more practice and hopefully be ready to go as soon as possible.”
Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy also chimed in about how impressed he was with Humphries.
“I love his energy. It’s a contagious, infectious personality that he has, with a lot of confidence, but he also has to learn the lingo and how we do things, and he’s been able to do that the last couple of weeks,” Nagy explained. “He’s been doing a really good job in practice of being able to show us with the opportunities he’s getting, and I think that’s half (of) the battle. It’s just the experience and the confidence, and now if he gets that opportunity and that’s the way we go, we’ll see on gameday if that’s the case.”
“The one thing that jumps off to me in regard to D.J. [Humphries],” Nagy continued. “He’s had a lot of reps, so that confidence is there. Then, you watch the reps in practice, and you see the mechanics and the techniques that he uses – the basic foundation of fundamentals. If there is something schematically that there might be a question with protection or in the run game, etcetera, Joe’s [Thuney] right there. I think it just really helps out a lot.”
Offensive tackle has been the one glaring problem the Chiefs needed to address as the season has gone on. Hopefully, Humphries is the reinforcement the team’s been looking for.
