The Kansas City Chiefs went through a notable change in the roster ahead of the 2026 season. They waived Chris Oladokun as the backup quarterback on Sunday and placed the seventh-round pick, Garrett Nussmeier, as the backup in the three-man quarterback room. But Oladokun’s role on the depth chart isn’t the only thing the Chiefs gave Nussmeier.
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The rookie quarterback also received Oladokun’s digits. The Chiefs officially handed Nussmeier the number 19 jersey, wasting no time reassigning the number previously worn by the departed veteran.
During the early stages of training camp and the preseason, Nussmeier wore the number 14 jersey. Well, he hasn’t publicly cited any personal significance of the number. But he certainly made it his own. Wearing the number in the game against the Los Angeles Rams, he completed 13 of 19 passes for 98 yards.
Nussmeier then earned the opportunity for his first start in the preseason finale against the Seattle Seahawks. He stepped up to replace Oladokun after he entered the blue tent for the concussion protocol. That’s when he completed 22 of 34 passes for 198 yards. Through the entire preseason, he completed 44 of 70 passes for 370 yards. No wonder head coach Andy Reid was impressed by the rookie quarterback, even though many believed that Nussmeier would get cut from the roster.
“I thought he handled things right,” Reid said, expressing his confidence in Nussmeier. “He had a chance to see a few blitzes in there, which I thought he handled well and showed composure with those. And then, something as simple as making the halftime adjustments, he was able to go through that and work through what really takes place there and reach into that next half.”
But before wearing the numbers 14 or 19 in Kansas City, Nussmeier wore the number 18 at LSU. That number holds massive weight in Baton Rouge. In fact, Nussmeier became the very first quarterback in the program to wear that digit since Matt Mauck wore it during the Tigers’ 2003 National Championship run. Carrying that historic legacy, Nussmeier delivered a phenomenal college career. He spent five seasons with LSU and threw for 7,699 yards and scored 52 touchdowns.
However, things are different in Kansas City. Nussmeier acknowledged that being on the same practice field with Patrick Mahomes and Justin Fields was a humbling experience. And he tried to learn as much as he could from the veterans.
“He’s like a library of knowledge,” Nussmeier told the media after a practice at Missouri Western State University. “In a sense, he’s played in the biggest of moments, the biggest of the biggest. When he talks about those moments, whatever I’m doing, I’m listening, just seeing what he says about the situations, what the atmosphere is like, just anything I can.”
Now, he gets the chance to play as the secondary backup for Mahomes, right behind Fields. Sporting his new number 19 jersey, the former LSU star seems ready to absorb everything he can as the Chiefs chase another Super Bowl victory.