Rounding up the Chiefs’ draft needs, who’s available and trading up

Last year, around this time, I ran a mini-series outlining the needs of the Kansas City Chiefs compared to the strengths of the draft and how the draft might actually set the Chiefs up well for their first pick at 54. I sorted the Chiefs’ needs into three categories, and then just went down each position group, looking at players in their most-likely draft range.

The exercise wasn’t meant to determine precisely which player was going to be available, but rather to discover which position pool as it related to the Chiefs’ needs were going to have the most abundant supply of players. NFL front offices run through these kinds of scenarios — along with mock drafts — countless times leading up to the draft.

But this year is a little different for the Chiefs.

They are drafting in the first round. They have accumulated the draft capital to move around. And compared to last year, they are closer to the first talent drop-off.

So let’s look at how the Chiefs’ positions of need (PoN) line up with the strengths of the draft class and projected drafting positions and also examine whether the Chiefs might need to trade up — and if so, roughly where they’d need to go.

As long as everything follows my predicted path — which all we know isn’t likely, the draft being so unpredictable — it might tell us something about what the Chiefs could do.

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Chiefs needs

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To start, we’ll divide the team needs into three tiers. I know the needs of a team are always subjective, so I’ll include an explanation with each one.

Tier 1: Need a starter or rotational contributor

We either have no starter or lack a quality starter at the position.

Tier 2: Need depth or eventual starter

The starter is on the roster, but the depth behind him is thin or non-existent. Also applies to players whose contracts are about to end.

Tier 3: Need depth only

A position for which the starter (or rotational player) is secured and the immediate backup is already on the roster

Here’s how that would shake out for the Chiefs:

Tier 1: wide receiver, edge rusher, defensive end and cornerback

Tier 2: tight end, interior offensive line, interior defensive line, safety and linebacker

Tier 3: quarterback, running back, offensive tackle

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The Draft

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Now that we’ve identified the team’s positional needs, let’s look at the players that might be available to the Chiefs in the first round.

There are 43 players that I think could go in the opening round. We’ll split them into three groups:

Top 20 (T20)

Players that are above the 90th percentile — that is, likely to be chosen in the first 20 picks.

Round 1 (R1)

Players that will likely go in the first round but are less likely to do so than T20 players.

Dark horse (DH)

Players who might get into the first round because of a specific team need or fit but otherwise aren’t seen as round-one players.

I’ve identified 43 players that might go in the first round. When we apply all of these classifications for team need and likely first-round position, here’s what we get:

To aid in absorbing this information (if your browser supports it), in this and the following tables, the light orange rows are T20 players, the yellow rows are R1 players, and the white rows are DH players. These designations are also shown under the player’s position.

And here’s how the numbers add up:

What does this mean?

So we have:

• 16 top-20 players
• 19 round-one players
• 8 dark horse players

If we assume all of the top 20 players do in fact go off the board in the first 28 picks — that is, before the Chiefs pick at 29 — that limits the player pool.

Therefore, what’s most likely to be left at pick 29 are round-one picks. Everything else being equal, as many as 12 of them (28 picks before the Chiefs, minus the 16 top-20 players) will be gone before the Chiefs would even pick at 29. Of the 19 round-one players, only about half of them are tier-one needs for the Chiefs.

Taking this logic one step further, that means this: of the 12 round-one players taken before the Chiefs, six of them would likely come from a tier-one need group. This would leave the Chiefs with just three player options from their highest level of need — and that’s if they stayed at 29.

Of course... the Chiefs will not like every player listed in this article. But if you do the math, what this data shows is that if the Chiefs move up six to nine spots in the draft, they would at least double the player pool from which they’ll be choosing.

That could be the difference in getting a preferred cornerback, a true top-flight wide receiver or one of the top-end pass rushers.

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KC Draft Guide

For more extensive reviews, rankings, and grades on players that could be available for the Chiefs check out the KC Draft Guide, which releases on April 8. Through the end of March, promo code ‘madness’ will get you the guide for 33 percent off!

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