With the AFC Championship in hand, the Kansas City Chiefs suffered a tough loss when starting left tackle Eric Fisher left the game with an Achilles injury.
Kansas City cruised to a 38-21 win that didn't feel that close, but the attention turns to the Super Bowl and whether the Chiefs will have their best offensive lineman available.
Fisher is a key cog on an offensive line already ravaged by injury — he had played in 95% of snaps on the season entering Sunday's game. He started every game expect Week 17 when the Chiefs rested starters. He was called for just one holding all season.
After the game, head coach Andy Reid told reporters he believed Fisher suffered a tear.
"It doesn't look too good," he said.
On its own, the loss doesn't seem monumental or line-shifting on paper. According to Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, Fisher is the eighth-most valuable player on the Chiefs and worth 0.13 points to the spread. Another one of our NFL experts, Chris Raybon, is on the same page and gives Fisher a 0.15 rating.
Starting right tackle Mitchell Schwartz has been on injured reserve since Week 11 with a back injury. His replacement, Mike Remmers, slid to left tackle to replace Fisher. Stefen Wisniewski came off the bench to fill in at right guard as Andrew Wylie moved to right tackle.
The depleted line will face a challenge in Tampa Bay, which boasts a defensive line of Ndamukong Suh, Vita Vea, Jason Pierre-Paul and William Gholston. That doesn't include linebacker Shaq Barrett, who accounted for three of the team's five sacks on Aaron Rodgers in the NFC Championship Game.
The Chiefs opened as 3.5-point favorites with a total of 57.5 — the highest in Super Bowl history. The game will be played on Sunday, Feb. 7 (find more information here).
