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Ray Willis retires from Chiefs after replacing retiring player

Chiefs Camp Football

Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Ray Willis stretches during NFL football training camp, Tuesday, July 31, 2012, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/The St. Joseph News-Press, Matt Reid)

AP

When tackle Tony Ugoh retired after spending less than a week as a member of the Chiefs, Kansas City reached deep into the bag of available offensive tackles to find a replacement.

They dug up Ray Willis, who hasn’t played in the NFL since starting all 16 games for the Seahawks in 2009. He had brief stints with both the Saints and the Jets before making his way to Kansas City where the Chiefs hoped to find something they could use as an experienced backup at tackle.

No such luck. Josh Looney of the team’s website passes along word that Willis has decided to take a page from the Ugoh playbook and call it a career. This might have been a case of jumping before getting pushed, so we won’t read anything into a larger trend of players going to Kansas City before being 100 percent sure that they didn’t want to play football anymore. After all, Marcus McNeill didn’t bother with that step before deciding to find another line of work.

Donald Stephenson and David Mims will continue battling for the backup tackle gig unless the Chiefs decide to spin the wheel one more time.