Ringing in the New

Super Bowl Champion Mitchell Schwartz Hopes to Power Chiefs Back to Title Game

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

The 2020 NFL season kicks off tonight at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, where on September 1 Pacific Palisades native Mitchell Schwartz and his Chiefs teammates received their Super Bowl LIV  rings, which they earned by coming from behind to defeat the San Francisco 49ers, 31-20, on February 2 in Miami.

Players were introduced upon walking out of the tunnel onto the field and  videos featuring the players’ families were shown, during which team Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt presented each of them with a box containing a ring made up 10.5 carats of gemstones, including 255 diamonds and 36 rubies.

“It truly is an amazing piece of jewelry… and huge,” proud dad Lee Schwartz said. “Mitchell’s hands are ginormous, yet the ring makes his finger look small. I’m hoping one day when visiting he’ll let me put it on my finger.”

Schwartz, a 6-foot-5, 320-pound right tackle, has started every game since joining the Chiefs in 2016 and held the league’s longest active consecutive snaps streak (7,894) until a knee injury forced him to miss three plays against the Tennessee Titans last November. In June 2019 the 29-year-old 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. In addition to leading the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl title in    half a century, Schwartz was named to the Associated Press All-Pro Second Team, and to the Pro Football Writers of America All-AFC Team last season.

Drafted in the second round (37th overall) by the Cleveland Browns in 2012, Schwartz started every game that year and was named to the Pro Football Focus 2012 All-Rookie Team. In 2013 he faced his older brother Geoff (then an offensive lineman with the Chiefs), marking the first time in NFL history that Jewish siblings played against each other. He and Geoff, who spent time at guard with five NFL franchises (Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants and Detroit Lions) before retiring in 2017, were the first Jewish brothers to play in the NFL since Ralph and Arnold Horween in 1923. Together they were inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2016, the same year they co-authored a book titled “Eat My Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith.”   

Geoff, 34, was a three-sport star (football, basketball and baseball) at Palisades High and won the Palisadian-Post Cup Award as the school’s outstanding senior athlete in 2004. He went on to be a three-year starter at right tackle for Oregon.

Mitchell, 31, started playing football as a freshman at Pali High, where he earned All-League and All-City honors as a junior and was named Western League and CIF LA City Section Offensive Lineman of the Year as a senior in 2006. He  started all 51 games possible (and missed only one snap) at left or right tackle at UC Berkeley from 2008–11 and started for the North in the 2012 Senior Bowl.

Kansas City is one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl again this year, having signed Super Bowl MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes to a 10-year extension worth $477 million with another $26 million in potential bonuses—the biggest contract in North American sports history.

Mitchell’s favorite hobby is cooking and posting recipes on social media. He has 95,000 Instagram followers and close to 65,000 more on Twitter and he enjoys interacting with fans. The Chiefs host the AFC South champion Houston Texans today (kickoff at 5:20 Pacific time).