Kyle Long, the former Chicago Bears Pro Bowl goalkeeper who retired this season, is signing a one-year contract worth up to $ 5 million with Kansas City bosses, said a source for Adam Schefter, of ESPN.
Long visited the Las Vegas Raiders on Tuesday.
Long is the latest addition to the Chiefs offensive line, as Kansas City is trying to revise a unit that could have five new starters in 2021 since the start of last season. Chiefs recently agreed to sign former New England Patriots guard Joe Thuney.
Chiefs recently launched both last season’s starting approaches, Mitchell Schwartz and Eric Fisher. Two other players who opened last season as starters, center Austin Reiter and goalkeeper Kelechi Osemele, are free agents without restrictions.
He is also waiting for the return of two players who gave up last season, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and Lucas Niang.
Long retired, hoping to play again in 2021, after announcing his retirement in January 2020, after seven seasons with Bears.
Written 20th overall by the Bears in 2013, Long missed just one game in his first three seasons, but appeared in only 30 regular-season contests in the last four years. He was selected to three consecutive Pro Bowls in his first three NFL seasons.
Long, 32, suffered a terrible ankle injury in 2016, which cost him the last eight games of that year and the first two games of the 2017 season. Long ended up missing six games in 2017, with a variety of ailments , being subjected to operations on the neck, shoulders and elbow in the off-season. He returned in time to start the first seven Bears games in 2018, before Chicago shut him down again before returning in Week 17 due to a foot injury.
Long opened the 2019 regular season in good form, but suffered a hip injury during training that led to the game against the Minnesota Vikings on September 29. He was inactive for that game, but returned to the starting lineup against the London Raiders on Oct. 6.
After losing to the Raiders – a game in which Long played all 56 possible offensive photos – the Bears decided they would be better off on offense without Long and immediately placed the veteran in the injured reserve once again.
I spent a lot of time in the 2020 season doing studio television work for CBS.
ESPN’s Adam Teicher and Jeff Dickerson contributed to this report.