Chiefs trade draft picks for Ravens’ Brown

League lifts constraints on players who are vaccinated

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just about everyone knew the Kansas City Chiefs were going to address their offensive line through the NFL draft.

Nobody quite expected them to do it a week before it even started.

The Chiefs plugged the biggest hole on their AFC champion roster Friday when they acquired twotime Pro Bowl offensive tackle Orlando Brown from the Ravens for a package of draft picks, including the No. 31 overall selection this year.

Both teams announced the trade, which will not become complete until Brown passes a physical.

The Ravens will get the 31st pick Thursday night, along with third- and fourth-round picks this year and a fifth-round pick next year. The Chiefs will get the Ravens’ second-round pick next week and a sixth-rounder in 2022.

“Teams continually tweak and update and revise that board, knowing where they can attack it,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said during a Zoom call earlier Friday. “I think that mid-twoto-early-three area is going to be a hot zone.”

Turns out that Day 2 depth was one of the reasons Veach was willing to let go of the No. 31 pick.

The Ravens had been expected to trade Brown since late January, when he took to social media to emphatically state that he was a left tackle rather than right tackle, where Baltimore wanted him to play going forward. And while the trade gives the Ravens two first-round picks, they likely will need to use one of them on a replacement on the right side.

The biggest surprise, though, may have been the trade partner. Baltimore essentially sent one of the league’s best players at one of the game’s premier positions to their biggest barricade toward making it back to the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs have spent the offseason rebuilding an offensive line that was decimated by opt-outs and injuries by the end of last season, when they were dominated up front by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a Super Bowl rout. But most of the work in free agency had been along the interior of the line, leaving both offensive tackle jobs up for grabs.

The Chiefs released left tackle Eric Fisher and right tackle Mitchell Schwartz, both of whom had surgery for season-ending injuries, to save space under the salary cap. And that left many to assume they would draft an offensive tackle at No. 31.

The 24-year-old Brown, a third-round pick of the Ravens in 2018, has started 42 games and appeared in all 16 each of the past three seasons.

VIRVUS/VACCINES: The NFL is lifting the constraints on players who have been vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus.

According to a memo sent to all 32 clubs Friday and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that players who are vaccinated will no longer be required to undergo daily testing, will not have to submit to lengthy “entry” testing following travel, and will not have to quarantine if identified as a “high-risk close contact” with an infected individual.

“There is no question that being vaccinated is the single most important step that anyone can take to be protected — and to protect others — from the virus,” Goodell wrote.

BROWNS: Cleveland exercised the fifth-year contract options on quarterback Baker Mayfield and cornerback Denzel Ward, the respective Nos. 1 and 4 overall picks three years ago who have become integral to Cleveland’s newfound success.

Mayfield is under contract for the next two seasons, with his 2022 salary guaranteed for $18.8 million. Ward will make $13.3 million in his final year.

STEELERS: Cornerback Justin Layne was arrested early Friday morning in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, and has been charged with improper handling of a firearm, a fourth-degree felony in Ohio.

Willoughby police Chief Matt Naegele said Layne was pulled over at 1:20 a.m. on Interstate 90 for driving 89 mph in a 60-mph zone. Willoughby is a suburb of Cleveland and located about 15 miles from the city.