KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As the Chiefs recovered from their Super Bowl LIX loss and started to build their roster for 2025, they found options for their most glaring positional need -- left tackle -- weren't particularly satisfying.
The Chiefs have been here before. Since releasing long-time starter Eric Fisher after the 2020 season, they have tried a trade, free agency and the draft to solve the left tackle problem. They have gone through six starters in the four years without Fisher, including four in 2024.
Their inability to find a long-term solution has been frustrating to general manager Brett Veach and coach Andy Reid. It got to the point this season where Veach told Reid he had a foolproof way for the Chiefs to find a left tackle once and for all.
"That's just sucking for a year and then [drafting] in the top 10,'' Veach said to Reid. "Then we'll get one.''
The Chiefs tried again to find their left tackle in free agency this year by signing Jaylon Moore, mostly a backup in his four NFL seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. It's also not out of the question they could draft a candidate to start, though that seems unlikely in a draft thin at the position.
The Chiefs' first-round pick is No. 31.
"The one thing that scares me is ... sitting there at 31 and having a first-round cornerback on the board and a first-round defensive end on the board and a third-round tackle,'' Veach said. "Everyone says it: 'Don't ever draft for a need. Always draft [the best available player].' I think we've done a great job of doing that over the years.''
To Veach's point about the best way to acquire a left tackle, the Chiefs were so bad in 2012 with a 2-14 record that they had the first pick of the draft the next year. They took Fisher, who started eight seasons for the Chiefs.
They haven't been in position to draft a top left tackle since. The Chiefs have drafted in the top 10 just once since 2013, that being in 2017, when they traded up to draft quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs hoped to find their long-term left tackle in last year's draft, when they had five players at the position with a first-round grade. But the Chiefs weren't scheduled to pick until No. 32, and all five tackles went in the top 19 picks.
The Chiefs then drafted a tackle, Kingsley Suamataia of BYU, late in the second round. Suamataia started the season's first two games but played so poorly he was benched, surfacing in the lineup again only late in the season and this time at a different position: guard.
Since Fisher, the Chiefs also traded with the Baltimore Ravens for Orlando Brown Jr., who started two seasons at left tackle before his contract demands became larger than the Chiefs believed they could afford. They signed a veteran near the end of his career, Donovan Smith, to start in 2023.
They also drafted Wanya Morris in the third round in 2023. He initially replaced Suamataia last year before eventually being benched as well.
The Chiefs last year also tried a late-season acquisition, D.J. Humphries, for a couple of games before in a sign of their desperation moving a starting guard, Joe Thuney, to left tackle.
Humphries is a free agent. Thuney was traded to the Chicago Bears.
Moore is likely next in line. Maybe he or a draft pick can be the solution but if not, Veach and the Chiefs will again in 2026 be in a familiar place.
"You just have to kind of think outside the box and put some creative plans together,'' Veach said. "We've been able to do that in different areas, different positions [but] the left tackle one is tricky.''