And away we go. We are back with another emergency podcast on the arrowhead pride podcast network. My name is Pete Swinney. I'm with my deputy editor John Dixon, as well as a great

staff writer for us at our head pride.com Ron cop and sometimes these emergency podcasts are for exciting and good reasons.

This one is for what I would consider to be a not so good reason. The chiefs are saying goodbye to two of really, I think the pillars of the team for a long time, especially in the Eric Fisher portion of this since 2013, the first overall pick, but the chief decided on Thursday morning to announce the releases of both of their starting tackles, which is crazy to say Eric Fisher and Mitch warts are now gone. We have a lot to talk about when it comes

these two guys, but what I want to ask you guys first, starting with you, John, your initial reaction upon hearing this news.

Well, it's just a business move. These players were going to cost 12% of the team's cap space in 2021. That's a lot for two guys here on the wrong side of 30

and you know, might not be available to start the season. The chiefs indicated that they had some confidence at least that they'd be able to play when the season began, but that's a crap shoot at best. This move will

clear 18.3 million dollars, I believe it is from the salary cap for 2021 and get the, get the chiefs to 4.3 million short of being under the salary cap, but I think that that money will largely be spent here pretty quickly, but we'll just have to see how the chiefs want to do it.

Yeah, this really starts with earlier in the week where, okay, finally, we get that salary cap number and it's lower than previous years. I mean, it's 182.5. You have the rollover chiefs are about 188. They expected this to be a 210. So you have to make some tough decisions like this. I think in an ideal world and ideal scenario, you maybe keep these guys and see how they rehab. Of course, you have Eric Fisher with his knee injury and then Mitch warts with his back and

his knee injury, but just not possible to go with their cap number. As you said, it combined 18 million given the fact that you don't know if these two guys are even going to be ready to play week one. And that leads us to what was Brett Vitch's comments from March 1st. Brett Vitch and one question was asked about Patrick Mahomes and these two tackles. And here's what he said back in early March.

This surgery on 210, you know, talking to Eric earlier this or earlier late last week. It's a three month recovery. So we're hopeful, you know, somewhere around that mandatory mini camp. If we have, you know, we certainly think by training camp will be good to go on and we'll be smart with him.

Mitch just recently had his his disk worked on and we're hopeful for for him to return to training camp and the same thing with fish. So we're hopeful both these guys will, you know, complete the rehab and and be available for for training camp and start the 2021 season with probably say past ahead of them just because of the, you know, that type of injury and probably a quick recovery.

But hopefully have all three ready to go by training camp now to be fair, a little bit of smoke there. I think coming out of that. We all incorrectly believed. Okay, these two guys are going to be given the opportunity to try to rehab and get back to full strength and be members of the Kansas City chiefs. And then today you have the statements and first from Andy read. I'd like to thank Eric and Mitch for all of their contributions over the years.

Every day, both of these men came to work with the right attitude, ready to grind both on the field and in the classroom. These guys are both dirty tough, which is a redism.

But beyond that, they're good people and I enjoyed coaching them. I wish them the best as they continue their careers and then Brett Beach, who again said maybe they could be ready for training camp today.

I have tremendous amount of respect for Eric and Mitchell with Eric. Obviously he was the very first player that we drafted when we got to Kansas City. We were able to watch him grow into a solid tackle for us for many years to come with Mitchell, his durability and toughness is remarkable.

And he certainly left his mark on our team. These decisions are never easy, especially with guys like these, but both of these players will forever be part of our history. So Ronald, I'll get to you finally two very different statements from March 1 to March 11th.

Yeah, absolutely. No, the main takeaway I had from this news this morning is that the chiefs are they're going to be cut for it like you kind of have to be in the NFL. Sometimes these kind of moves you make on madden and you don't really think about the human aspect of it, you know, just the they know fish or they know Schwartz, you know, a team might want to give them the capability or the opportunity to return from injury or even restructure their contractor something along those lines to keep them around.

But no Brett V12 messing around. This is like a New England Patriots kind of move where, you know, you just cut you just cut it. You just cut the line and just just let it go and move on and use that cap space. You just saved to find a replacement. So I think they're going to have a lot more room now to find those replacements.

You mentioned the New England Patriots. And I think that's a good comparison. And of course right now after that brutal Super Bowl loss, we have eased a little bit on the dynasty talk.

But this is still a team that has gone to three AFC title games in a row and one one Super Bowl. So they're still within the realm. I mean that dream isn't over, but we're certainly not going to be talking about it as much.

But if you're going to be in the realm of those New England Patriots teams, John, you got to make moves like this. And sometimes you have to say goodbye to what have been key pieces in the NFL.

It's all about what can you do for me next, not what you did for me.

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