KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The preparation for a reboot will unfold over the next month in St. Joseph, Mo., on the back fields of the Missouri Western State campus.

The preparation for the quarterback began months earlier, with Patrick Mahomes rehabbing the most serious injury of his career in the Chiefs’ Kansas City training facility.

Will he be ready by the time they break camp in August? That evaluation will find its roots in whether he can protect himself.

The forthcoming evaluation is the next layer: Can the Chiefs adequately protect him?

As relevant of a topic as that is for every training camp, it’s never been more important than this one, when Mahomes is coming off knee surgery. His mobility has long been an asset in sack avoidance, though even that has seen a dip in effectiveness over the past two years.

But there’s another way to avoid sacks.

The offensive line can limit pressure.

They did a year ago. Really.

The Chiefs ranked second in pass-block win rate last year, per ESPN’s Analytics tracking. Mahomes was pressured on only 29.2% of his dropbacks, per Next Gen Stats — 27 quarterbacks were pressured at a higher rate.

The offensive line wasn’t the problem last season. It shouldn’t be the problem. In fact, with a quarterback coming off an injury, it needs to be a weapon.

Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith signed deals that topped their respective positions; Josh Simmons is a first-round pick; and Kingsley Suamataia is a second-rounder.

The Chiefs have invested heavily into protection, enough that the national narrative shouldn’t be that they ignored it altogether, and enough that they should be able to utilize it for longer-developing play-action and to impose a will in the run game.

There is, however, a caveat. There’s still an unknown. And when it comes to protecting the quarterback, it only takes one crack to break the dam.

What’s up with right tackle?

There’s a football proverb so old that, well, good luck attempting to find its original source. I tried. It’s most frequently attributed to John Madden, but occasionally assigned to Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes.

If you have two quarterbacks, the adage goes, then you really have zero.

Maybe it’s still relevant. Maybe it’s a bit antiquated, given a second quarterback might make some sense in certain circumstances.

Anyway, the Chiefs have just one quarterback.

But they have not one, not two but three right tackles.

So do they really have any?

The Chiefs rotated Jaylon Moore (last year’s free-agent signing), Esa Pole (2025 undrafted free agent) and Kahlil Benson (2026 undrafted free agent) at right tackle during the summer.

That might be building competition. It might just be building motivation.

Either way, it is building uncertainty now.

It’s not as though the Chiefs have been great at right tackle over the last three years. The Jawaan Taylor signing was more bust than boom, even if he proved a more reliable pass protector than run enforcer. He committed 56 penalties in three years, including the postseason, per PFF data.

Those penalties significantly hampered an offense that failed to generate explosive plays. They needed to stay on schedule. When coach Andy Reid uttered over and over again that his team needed to “clean some things up,” he frustrated many. But he wasn’t wrong.

The Chiefs have an opportunity to improve there. Given the other investments they’ve made along the offensive line, both financial and through draft capital, they should be a top-five unit.

They should, in fact, be able to turn it into a different sort of weapon, with a run game that could stand to lean on them a little more. And they might need to deploy a different weapon this year.

Mahomes has made a living out of escaping the pocket, and he’s been particularly adept at escaping when the pressure comes from the edge — which, you know, is where the right tackle lines up. His presence on the field does not guarantee a full return to that escapability. He’s even talked about trying to learn to stay in the pocket more.

It’s a good objective, and good timing for the objective. But it’s not all on Mahomes to executive it.

The Chiefs have solidified four answers — depending both on health and Simmons sticking around for a full season

They need all five.

The search for the fifth, or even the battle for a fifth, will occupy our attention over the next month.

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