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| - Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes has a new blind-side blocker to protect him after the NFL team made a trade Friday with the Baltimore Ravens for Orlando Brown. Mahomes, who spent much of February's Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay scrambling because his blockers struggled to stop the Buccaneers, tweeted his delight with five smiley faces and a story about the deal. Mahomes was the 2018 NFL Most Valuable Player, led the Chiefs to the 2019 season crown with a Super Bowl MVP award and led Kansas City to the title game again last season. Brown, a Pro Bowl offensive tackle, will fill a void on the left side of the Chiefs' line and complete a major revamp of the protection for Mahomes. Kansas City has also signed guard Joe Thuney to a five-year deal worth $80 million, lured guard Kyle Long out of a one-year retirement and revised contract terms of guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who opted out of last season due to the Covid-19 pandemic so he could work in the medical field in his homeland of Canada. The deal for Brown reportedly sees Kansas City send their first-round pick in next week's NFL Draft, 31st overall, plus third-round and fourth-round picks to Baltimore in exchange for a second-round pick, 58th overall, plus a swap of 2022 fifth- and sixth-round picks that favors the Ravens. Brown -- whose late father Orlando Brown Sr. was also an offensive tackle for the Ravens -- has played 48 NFL games since being taken in the third round in 2018, 42 of them as a starter, with experience at left and right tackle. Brown replaced injured Ronnie Stanley on the left side in 2020 and proved a Pro Bowl protector. With Stanley set to return this year, Brown had asked to be traded, saying he sought to stay a left-side blocker. The Chiefs had cut their prior starting offensive tackles, Mitchell Schwartz and Eric Fisher, over injury and salary cap issues. js/bb
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