The Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs have played each other in two Super Bowls over the past three years, and each team has walked away with a win. The Eagles' win in Super Bowl LIX was much more dominant and impressive, but the record is still 1-1.
This is the dawn of a pretty solid interdivisional rivalry, where both teams have coaches and players who have a history with both teams. Free agency starts on Monday, March 10th, and there’s a decent chance that even more Eagles will start a new chapter of their career with the Chiefs.
The Eagles and Chiefs' incestuous relationship can continue in free agency
The Chiefs are going to lose a whole bunch of players in free agency, which is fun. It’s nice to see a team that has been the bogeyman of the NFL get weaker. Unfortunately, they have to fill some of those spots, and the Eagles that are entering free agency line up pretty well with what Kansas City needs.
Andy Reid’s gang is in a tough spot because they have almost no cap space. That means that they’re not going to be able to afford Milton Williams and Josh Sweat, which is good because you don’t want to see a couple of home-grown guys leave and go to a rival.
That being said, there are a few other guys who the Chiefs could sign. Some of them would make a little more sense than the others.
Kenneth Gainwell
The Chiefs' lead running back, Isiah Pacheco, broke his fibula in Week 2 and threw the team into a little bit of a frenzy. They ended up signing the 29-year-old (and famously bad person) Kareem Hunt, who led the way for pretty much the rest of the season. Signing older, sub-par running backs off the street isn’t a way to go through life.
Kenny Gainwell is only 25 years old and coming off of a season where he only carried the ball 88 times. He’s good at carrying the ball, he’s good as a pass catcher, he’s good at pass protection, and he’s going to be cheap. Those are all things that should look good to a team like the Chiefs, who need a reliable RB2.
The situation around Gainwell is the weird part: Nick Sirianni loves him. On one hand, Sirianni’s an emotional dude, and winning a Super Bowl gives you a lot of pull towards who stays on a roster. If he wants to keep a cheap RB2, then it’s probably cool.
On the other hand, the Eagles just drafted Will Shipley in the fourth round of the 2024 draft, presumably because he would take over as RB2. Also, Kenneth Gainwell has more than earned a paycheck. If he becomes a free agent, a team will probably pay him more than the Eagles would.
Gainwell deserves to be more than just a relief guy for Saquon Barkley. If he goes to another team, he’ll get more shine. He’d get that shine if he was the RB2 for pretty much any team other than the Eagles and the Ravens. It’d just be cool if he didn’t go to Kansas City.
Zack Baun
Hopefully, the Eagles sign Zack Baun before he’s able to hit free agency on Monday because he’s a wanted man, and any team that gets him is going to be a whole lot better.
The Chiefs are probably going to lose their stud linebacker, Nick Bolton, in free agency. That would be huge, and good teams find a way to fill huge losses with huge signings. Zack Baun would be that huge signing.
Because Baun is 28 years old, he’s not perfect for every team. Teams that are a ways away from winning aren’t going to spend big money on a player that’s close to being on the verge of being old.
The Chiefs are a ‘win now’ team, and seeing “28 years old” next to Baun’s name wouldn’t scare them away. The mondo-sized price tag next to his name will though... hopefully
The funky thing about this is that if Baun ends up not re-signing with the Eagles, the Eagles would be smart to go after Nick Bolton. There’s a potential for a little bit of a ‘tradesies’ here.
Mekhi Becton
The main reason the Super Bowl was such an utterly dominant win for the Eagles was that the Chiefs' offensive line played like complete garbage for a full 60 minutes, which isn’t a new thing for them.
They lost to Tom Brady’s Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV because Tampa Bay’s defensive line was seemingly incapable of losing a single rep in the trenches. After that game, Kansas City spent a boatload of resources rebuilding their offensive line, which worked out for them.
It feels like the Chiefs are probably going to try to go that route again this offseason, especially since this year, Patrick Mahomes was sacked a career-high 36 times.
For a decent chunk of the season, Joe Thuney, their starting left guard, played left tackle because the other three left tackles were terrible. The problem for them was that Thuney is a really good left guard, and his replacement, Mike Caliendo, is pretty awful.
The best move would be for the Chiefs to go out and get a left tackle so Thuney could move back to his natural position. But maybe they will do something stupid. Maybe they decide to keep Thuney at tackle and get a guard (or a guy who can play both positions) instead. That’s where Mekhi Becton could be a possibility.
Becton definitely wouldn’t be the Chiefs' first option as the replacement on the left side of their offensive line, but he is an option. The Jets drafted him as a tackle, which is where he played until he came to the Eagles, where he played right guard.
Linemen say that going from one side of the line to the other is like trying to write with your non-dominant hand, and that’s exactly what Becton would be doing. But since he tried something new with the Eagles, who’s to say he wouldn’t be open to trying something even newer with a new team?
Again, it would be mega-dumb for the Chiefs to pay Becton to have him do something he’s never done before, but teams make terrible decisions all the time.