New PFF mock draft has the Chiefs take a cornerback with the 30th pick

On Monday, Pro Football Focus analyst Steve Palazzolo released a first-round mock draft that he labeled as being “through the lens of what I would do rather than predicting the first round.” As you would expect from a PFF writer, many of his picks lined up fairly closely with the site’s Big Board — but some of them did not. The first four of the six first-round cornerbacks were within a few spots of the site’s overall rankings — but with the 25th pick, he had the Buffalo Bills take the 49th-ranked Roger McCreary of Auburn. Then at 30th, he had the Kansas City Chiefs come back in line with PFF’s Big Board.

30. Kansas City Chiefs: CB Kaiir Elam, Florida

Big Board Rank: 31

While Elam is coming off the worst year of his college career, he had excellent production early on. He has the size and movement skills to play one-on-one on the outside, making him a great option to help replace free agent Charvarius Ward.

Here, Palazzolo is following the recent trend among national mock drafts, having Kansas City take a defensive back in the first round to replace a free-agent player he expects will be leaving town. In a mock we covered in Arrowheadlines on Saturday, CBS Sports analyst Tom Fornelli made a similar move, taking Michigan safety Daxton Hill to replace Tyrann Mathieu. Assuming there is an equal chance that both players will leave, a first-round replacement for Mathieu might make more sense, since Kansas City’s cupboard is a little less bare at corner than it is at safety. But as Fornelli put it, “I’ll probably have Daxton Hill to the Chiefs in every mock I do until I know what the future of Tyrann Mathieu holds.”