LA Chargers: 3 new players on the Chiefs to worry about


1. Joe Thuney
The LA Chargers signed the best center in free agency in Corey Linsley, making him the highest-paid center in league history. The Kansas City Chiefs, however, signed the best offensive lineman available period in Joe Thuney.
Thuney is coming over from the New England Patriots and signed a five-year, $80 million contract with the Chiefs with $48 million guaranteed. Somehow the best team in the league had the money to sign the best offensive lineman.
It sounds weird to "worry" about an offensive lineman but Thuney is going to be the most impactful new face on the Chiefs. It is not like the Chiefs had a bad offensive line before but they knew when to transition into a new era. They cut guys a year sooner than any other team would have and transitioned after seeing how disastrous the Super Bowl was.
The key to slowing down Mahomes, or any quarterback for that matter, is to pressure him. While he is still fantastic against pressure, he is human.
It is more than just generating pressure though. It is the ability to generate pressure with only four, maybe five, rushers. That is what the Bucs were able to do in the Super Bowl and it is the reason why the Chiefs' offense struggled. Granted, there were injuries, but that is the blueprint.
Signing Joe Thuney was the best move the Chiefs could have made to protect Patrick Mahomes.