[RealSNR]

Again, not counting trades or contract extensions, this is the best free agent signing we've had in the modern Chiefs era, I believe.

When Priest first signed with us, he made jack shit, and while we were signing him to be our primary starting RB (not in a committee, either) I don't think we were expecting him to be Marshall Faulk-level good. Maybe Dick Vermeil did, because he had that kind of faith in players and people, but I doubt Carl did, either. At the very least, the rest of the league wasn't expecting it, especially the Ravens who drafted his replacement and let him walk.

Mitchell Schwartz was already considered to be a top 5 RT at that point in his young career. We got him for 5 years and $33 million in 2016-- at the time basically the going price for a very good guard. We got an elite player of greater position importance on the line for very good guard money. And we did it by stealing him away at the last minute from a shit **** franchise even though they were prepared to pay more.

I think the nod has to go to Schwartz in that case. It was the circumstances of how we acquired him, what we paid according to what he could have and probably would have received from other teams, and what he's done for the team in his longevity of play (and continues to do so).

It was like that was the signing that changed everything for this OL. You don't usually think of a RT as the catalyst for propelling an OL into elite play, but that's basically what happened. RT was ALWAYS the weakest part of our line for the past 10 seasons, and no matter what kind of quality players we had elsewhere on the line, it was like we knew it would be mediocre because we just couldn't seem to fix that hole (nor did we seem to try too hard). Once we got Schwartz, we saw greatly improved play from Fisher and LDT. Hell, we've still got that nagging LG hole that seemingly only ever gets filled if a random 1-year vet like Jeff Allen or Wisniewski takes over mid-season. But that's just never a big deal for us, nor do I consider it a big deal now.