NFL Iron Man

Pali High Alum Mitchell Schwartz Started 141 Straight Games

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

There is a first time for everything and it came on Sunday for Mitchell Schwartz. The former Palisades High football player had made 141 straight starts in the NFL before sitting out the Kansas City Chiefs’ 43-16 road victory over the AFC West rival Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium.    

Schwartz was officially ruled out of the Week 7 game two days prior because of a back injury that caused him to miss all but the first series at Buffalo a week before. Adding his college career to his pro slate of 134 regular season and seven playoff contests, Schwartz started 192 games in a row.

“First time not traveling, and first game in my career I’ll miss,” the 31-year-old right tackle shared Saturday on Instagram. “Going to be strange watching tomorrow but there will be no bigger Chiefs fan! Working hard to get back out there and excited to see the guys keep this thing rolling. Go Chiefs!!”

The league’s ultimate ironman, Schwartz also enjoyed a streak of  7,894 consecutive snaps, which ended last season when he injured his knee in the second quarter of the Chiefs’ 35-32 loss to Tennessee in Nashville. He returned to that game in the third quarter and played the entire second half.

Schwartz missed only one snap in his four seasons at Cal and that was the result of a shoelace that he could not retie himself because he had too much tape on his hands.

The NFL record for consecutive snaps is believed to be held by Cleveland Browns left tackle Joe Thomas, a 10-time Pro Bowler with whom Schwartz played for the first four years of his pro career. Thomas did not miss a snap before tearing his left triceps in an October 22, 2017 game against Tennessee. His streak of 10,363 consecutive plays spanning 11 seasons is the longest since snap counts were first recorded in 1999.

Schwartz was the City Section and Western League Lineman of the Year as a senior at Palisades in 2006 and he and his older brother Geoff (who preceded him at Pali High, was a three-year starting tackle at the University of Oregon and played for four teams before retiring from the NFL in 2017) are the first Jewish siblings to play in the NFL since Ralph and Arnold Horween in 1923. In February, he helped the Chiefs win their first Super Bowl in 50 years.

At 6-foot-5 and 320 pounds, Schwartz was picked 37th overall in the 2012 NFL Draft.

Former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre holds the all-time NFL record with 297 consecutive starts from 1992 to 2010 and Indianapolis quarterback Phillip Rivers has the longest active streak at 226.

In June 2019, Schwartz signed a one-year contract extension with Kansas City through the 2021 season for $11.255 million, making him the second-highest paid player at his position in the NFL.

Geoff won the Post Cup Award as the outstanding senior athlete at Pali High in 2004 and now works with Fox Sports. He and Mitchell co-authored a book titled “Eat My Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith,” published in September 2016.