Former Chiefs tackle’s cursed NFL run may have reached its end

Some NFL careers are cursed from the start. Lucas Niang is one of them.

Even though he's only 26 years old, Niang came into the 2025 preseason with an extensive injury history, which made it safe to label his recent signing with the Washington Commanders as a low-risk upside play unlikely to pan out. Unfortunately, Niang didn't even last a single exhibition with the team before heading to injured reserve once again.

Niang suffered a torn ACL in Washington's preseason opener against the New England Patriots. Instead of helping the team fill in for the surprising retirement of Nate Herbig, the Commanders will now likely head to the free-agent well once again for further help and hope along the offensive front.

As for Niang, the latest ACL tear brings his future in the National Football League into serious doubt. Despite being an athletic, talented lineman with positional versatility, the gods haven't smiled on the TCU product since his final year at the collegiate level. It's been one issue after another, and at some point, the attrition due to time missed and the toll on the body from so many physical ailments lead to an inevitable end.

It feels like Niang has reached that moment.

The injury history is a CVS receipt at this point, dating back to a season-ending torn hip labrum in 2019—his senior season at Texas Christian University. Niang required surgery to repair it, and a limited season of only 7 games dropped his NFL Draft stock to the point that the Chiefs were able to grab him in the bottom of the third round in 2020.

It's been a very unfortunate run in the NFL for Lucas Niang.

Yet even that rookie campaign was wasted, at least developmentally, when Niang decided to opt out of his first season in the NFL. COVID-19 forced numerous changes upon the league, and no one should fault a player for deciding to sit out the year in response to concerns. However, looking at Niang's on-field needs to adjust, a year of working out on his own did him no favors when he officially returned to the Chiefs.

To Niang's credit, and this should be emphasized, he was gifted enough to come in for the Chiefs and start at right tackle a year-plus removed from the game in 2021. He started 9 games that season, but a rib injury robbed him of three games before he suffered a torn patellar tendon in Week 17.

Going into 2022, Niang wasn't even off of the Physically Unable to Play list due to rehab from the patellar injury until the second half of the season. Upon his official return, he was able to play in 7 games after the bye, but those were all special teams reps. He was a ghost on offense with Andrew Wylie entrenched at right tackle.

Niang would go on to play in 14 games for the Chiefs in 2023, his third official season with the team since he opted out, but again, those were special teams reps given the presence of veterans like Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor outside.

By the time Niang reached his contract year with the Chiefs, he'd been relegated to the practice squad before being released last November.

A torn ACL after a torn hip labrum and a patellar injury means that Lucas Niang has suffered three devastating injuries in a career also featuring a fully-missed season (COVID) and another one shortened by rehabilitation. That's a luckless professional run and brings into serious question whether the NFL will ever see Niang again.