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What Bashaud Breeland’s signing means for Chiefs’ NFL Draft strategy

The Chiefs added Breeland to their cornerback room this week—here’s how it might affect the team’s draft strategy.

Washington Redskins v Dallas Cowboys Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The Chiefs added veteran cornerback Bashaud Breeland into the mix this week to help add some talent to a position that desperately needs it. Breeland is a solid but unspectacular player.

Is Breeland's addition to the roster enough for the Chiefs to ignore the corner position until day two of the NFL Draft? We tackled that question and more on this week's episode of the AP Laboratory.

There are still two glaring needs on defense and they are the aforementioned cornerback position also EDGE. The Chiefs had a mass exodus of talent along their defensive front with the release of Justin Houston, trading of Dee Ford and the presumed farewell of Allen Bailey (still a free agent). The Chiefs are currently relying on second-year player Breeland Speaks, recently-signed Alex Okafor and the enigmatic Tanoh Kpassagnon.

That is, to put it lightly, not enough.

This is a strong EDGE class, especially in the first-round range. Recently, there has been a bevy of mock drafts that put Clemson's Clelil Ferrell within striking distance of the Chiefs in a trade-up scenario. Ferrell has the necessary length and density that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo craves (we learned this from the signing of Okafor and the trade of Ford). He also happens to be an excellent football player. The mystery around his lack of athletic testing at his pro day and the combine has created uncertainty in his market. The Chiefs could be the beneficiary.

At cornerback, the Chiefs now have Breeland, Kendall Fuller and Charvarius Ward as the key pieces. The recent add certainly helps the talent pool and you could probably skate by until the second round to add a player. However, it shouldn't preclude them from grabbing a high-ceiling player like Greedy Williams from LSU if the board fell.

The bottom line

I don't think the signing of Breeland completely eliminates cornerback from round-one consideration, but they are better positioned at this point than they are at EDGE. I would keep the situation fluid and take (or potentially trade up for) the highest-graded EDGE, cornerback or even interior defensive lineman on the board to help improve the pass rush or coverage. However you slice it, the Chiefs need a difference-maker and their focus should be getting the best defensive difference maker they can.


The podcast


KC Draft Guide

We’ll have write-ups on Ferrell and every day one and two cornerback and how they’d fit the Chiefs in the first ever edition of the KC Draft Guide, which releases on April 8.

We’ll have over 200 prospect write-ups, specifically about how prospects fit the Chiefs. There will be big boards, more than 300 grades on players, mock drafts, positional rankings and features all specific to the Chiefs. You can pre-order the guide for only $6.99 by clicking here. Here’s a preview of what the page layouts will look like:

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