It's been a mutual decision for a long time now. Dude is worse than Sammy Watkins when if comes to injuries.

I think we can all agree that even at mediocre he's an upgrade from the backup guard that's playing there now.

Fair enough. Hope it was more of a strategic move by the Chiefs. And again certainly his right but you didnt see other rookies do it

Ding Ding Ding. The Chiefs knew he needed close to another year to recover from his surgery. By opting out it effectively gave him a redshirt year without using up a year of contract.

He may get some snaps to knock the rust off.

Wylie outperformed Niang last year. We got better at RT when Niang went down.

Niang may just not be very good. He damn sure isn't very reliable. I'm honestly not sure who I'd take off the roster to activate him at this point. Probably Kinnard, I guess. Chiefs would probably chose to lose Christian though.

I'd highly doubt they'd choose to cut their only viable backup LT.

Agreed. No shot they cut OBJ at this point.

I hope it's not Christian, Kinnard should be the guy for sure.

First, it's great that Niang is coming back. While I guess many here have seen enough, I think there is still time for him to turn into something. He's 24 years only and has two years remaining under his rookie contract after this season.

Now I don't think he's going to see much action unless there is an injury, which is fine. I just want him to stay healthy, practice, and make a run for the job in the offseason. We need him for depth badly.

Is this really what happened? Did he get paid? I can't imagine a player being ok with being asked to take a year off, unpaid and be forced to stay on the rookie deal a year longer...

At this point he just needs better than Wylie.

Didn't they play Prince there over Christian earlier in the year for a few snaps?

Yes! And he was OK...for like 10 snaps. I've no idea why i'm invested in this guy but I honestly think he's a viable backup LT.

PFF Niang vs Wylie

Before an injury cut his season short, Niang recorded a 79.5 overall grade, an 84.8 PFF pass-blocking grade and a 71.8 PFF run-blocking grade across 378 offensive snaps. In his three seasons with significant playing time, Niang never pushed his run-blocking grade above 75.7 (2018) or his pass-blocking grade above 86.3 (2018). Still, he never allowed more than 14 total pressures in any single season of his career and was called for just three total penalties across 1,982 career offensive snaps.

Wylie was graded at 67.2 for 2021 and is at 59.7.... so there is that