Best available players for Day 3 of 2021 NFL Draft — and for the Chiefs on Friday night

On Wednesday, we brought you a draft prospect ranking based on lists from five sources: NFL.com, ESPN (Todd McShay), Pro Football Focus, CBS Sports and The Draft Network. Now that the first three rounds of the draft are behind us, here are the top 100 of those prospects who are still available.

Below the table, we’ll the have details about the situation in which the Kansas City Chiefs found themselves at the end of the second round on Friday night.

What the Chiefs faced on Friday

Now let’s take a look at two specific situations from Friday night — the first being when the Chiefs made their pick at 58. Here are the top players who were available.

Thanks to the trade the Chiefs had made with the Baltimore Ravens for offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr., the team was in a position to take the best available player — and the data suggests that in this moment, that’s fair description of their pick: Nick Bolton.

It’s true that based on the rankings of draft analysts, Terrace Marshall Jr. might have been a more highly-rated player — but the fact that he was still available so late in the second round (more than 20 picks later than draft analysts had rated him) suggests that most NFL teams (apparently including the Chiefs) had a different view. The Cincinnati Bengals felt differently, taking him with the next selection.

It’s also true that if you feel the Chiefs needed an edge rusher more than a linebacker, Joseph Ossai would have been a reasonable pick. But it wasn’t the pick the Chiefs chose to make — suggesting that all other things being equal, the Chiefs saw linebackers as a greater priority than edge rushers.

Five picks later at 63, here’s the situation the Chiefs faced:

This shows us that yet again, their pick of Creed Humphrey could be seen as the best player available — but this time, with an emphasis on the interior offensive linemen over edge rushers and cornerbacks.

It’s certainly arguable whether this was the correct emphasis for the Chiefs to use in these two moments. But again — rightly or wrongly — this is what the team chose to do. This data clearly suggests that in both situations, the picks represented good value.