Today's NFL draft rumor: Chiefs 'believed to be' willing to trade Brandon Flowers

Those KC Chiefs rumors just keep on comin'. According to Dan Pompei of Bleacher Report, the Chiefs are "believed to be willing" to trade cornerback Brandon Flowers. Presumably any deal would involve draft picks, which makes this a draft rumor. Note that the report is not saying the Chiefs are talking to people ... just that someone believes they would trade him for the right deal.

This rumor comes on the heels of the Monday reports that the Chiefs would be willing to consider a quarterback at No. 23 because the contract negotiations with starting quarterback Alex Smith are going slowly.

The Flowers trade rumors are not much of a new thing to fans who have been talking about this idea for a while. Flowers has a cap hit over $10 million in 2014 and another big one in 2015 ($11.5 million), which means he's going to be under more scrutiny than other players.

Flowers is a solid player who would benefit any team in the NFL. There's little question about that in my opinion. The problem is that 28-year old cornerbacks with $50 million contracts aren't traded very often. Usually when the trade rumors start with a player, the player just ends up being released. Teams just assume they'll wait for the player to hit the market and pay something closer to the market rate.

I'm not advocating Flowers' release. I'm just saying that the "Team A is willing to part with Player B" reports usually wind up in Player B getting released. Many fans see Flowers as a good player and assume a team will give up a draft pick for him but that often does not work out.

If the Chiefs traded Flowers, they would be worse off at cornerback, a position they struggled with last year. Flowers didn't have his best year in 2013 but I do believe the Chiefs are better off with him than without him ... depending on the draft pick. If someone is willing to give up a mid-round pick or higher, then the Chiefs need to consider that.

Flowers is a homegrown Chief so there will be plenty of Chiefs fans who won't even consider the idea of a trade.