The defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs were thrown for a loop when starting guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif announced he would opt out of the 2020 NFL season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Duvernay-Tardif’s decision was simple. He’s a medical school graduate from McGill University in Canada. The 29-year-old guard had been helping in an assisted living facility in Montreal. He indicated that if he were going to risk his health, it would be in the medical field as a first responder rather than on the football field.
The good news for Kansas City is that it has found a replacement.
Chiefs sign two-time Pro Bowl guard Kelechi Osemele
A former second-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens, Osemele spent part of last season with the New York Jets. A rift between the two led to his premature departure from Jersey.
Prior to that, the Iowa State star had started a combined 93 games in seven seasons with the Ravens and then-Oakland Raiders.
Kansas City could not have asked for a better situation following Duvernay-Tardif’s decision. It gets a plug-and-play right guard in front of Patrick Mahomes immediately ahead of the start of training camp.