When the Chiefs signed Jawaan Taylor to a four-year deal in March, the club was expected to move him over to left tackle for the 2023 season.
But things changed last week when Kansas City signed veteran left tackle Donovan Smith.
Head coach Andy Reid said on Monday that Smith will start OTAs as the first-team left tackle with Taylor at right tackle. That keeps the players at the positions they played on their former teams, with Smith on the Buccaneers and Taylor on the Jaguars. But it keeps the door open for things to change later on.
Reid said the Chiefs liked that Smith has “been a left tackle at a high level.”
“If you look at last year, he was hurt,” Reid said in his press conference. “The year before that, he was one of the top-graded left tackles in the league. And we’ve had a chance to play against him a couple times and seen him first-hand there. He’s a good football player.”
Smith, who turns 30 in June, has started 124 games since the Buccaneers selected him in the second round of the 2015 draft. A second-round pick in 2019, Taylor has 66 career starts.