NBC Sports’ Peter King is arguably one of the most polished and accomplished sportswriters in America today, and when it comes to covering the NFL, his opinions actually carry some weight. King has covered the league for 40 years and has extensive knowledge of all 32 teams.
Earlier this week, in Monday’s edition of NBCSN’s Football Morning In America (FMIA) column, King did his offseason power rankings for all 32 NFL clubs. At the top of that list, he chose the Chiefs as his No. 1 team and has a high expectation for them to “keep rolling” during the 2021 campaign:
“This is such a well-coached, well-run team. I remember doing this list last year and trying to force myself to find any reason to pick another team number one after the Super Bowl win, and I couldn’t. Same after the Super Bowl loss now. KC lost to Tampa because the Bucs got on one of those can’t-stop-‘em rolls, but also because Andy Reid’s offensive line was tattered due to injury and opt-outs; Patrick Mahomes got sacked or pressured 29 times that day. So GM Brett Veach maneuvered the cap and signed/drafted/traded for a new offensive line (with the exception of returning tackle Mike Remmers). In Week 1, Orlando Brown/Joe Thuney/Austin Blythe/Kyle Long/Remmers should be a top 10 NFL offensive line—a vast improvement from number 32 at season’s end. Veach helped in another way: making Mahomes’ contract palatable. His cap number this year is only $7.4 million and I would expect the Chiefs to convert compensation in 2022 and maybe 2023 into a signing bonus so it can be prorated and keep cap numbers in those years low as well. By the time the huge Mahomes chunks start coming two or three years from now, Veach is gambling that the cap will be back to its pre-pandemic annual increases. And Kansas City (31-7 over the last two years) should keep rolling.”
This is a fair assessment by King. The primary reason the Chiefs lost Super Bowl 55 was their woes on the offensive line, an area Kansas City has improved dramatically over the off-season, and for right now, appears downright impregnable on paper. Of course, it will take some time for Kansas City’s new o-line to fully gel and play as a unit, but it’s anyone’s guess as to how long that will actually take. Still, the offensive line as it currently stands is incredibly better than where it was back in February.
King also pinched on Kansas City’s way of handling Mahomes’ mega-contract by converting his guaranteed cash into a signing bonus to produce a low cap hit and create a necessary amount of cap space to have a productive off-season. With high-end players like safety Tyrann Mathieu going into the final year of his current contract, the Chiefs will need the necessary cash to keep one of the league’s top defensive backs in their building.
Although there’s a long way to go before the start of the upcoming season, the Chiefs definitely have the ingredients to pick up where they left off and keep on rolling as one of the league’s elite Super Bowl contenders.
Behind the Chiefs, King rounded out his top five with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (#2), Buffalo Bills (#3), Cleveland Browns (#4), and San Francisco 49ers (#5).
