Mock Draft: FanSided Chooses Wide Receiver For Kansas City Chiefs
By Ben Nielsen
Another mock draft, another wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round.
FanSided released their first mock draft of the mock draft season today and to no one’s surprise the Chiefs are taking a wide receiver with their first round pick. At this stage, it’s a matter of which wide receiver the Chiefs take in these mock drafts than it is what position they take.
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We’ll get into whether or not the Chiefs actually take a wide receiver in the first round in later posts but for now lets focus on the guy Sayre Bedinger has the Chiefs taking in his mock draft.
Without further nonsense, here we go.
With the 18th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, Bedinger suggests the Kansas City Chiefs will select Kevin White — a wide receiver from West Virginia. Here’s what he has to say about the pick.
18. player. 124. The Chiefs’ wide receivers are terrible, so getting someone at this stage like Kevin White is a huge coup for them. He’s reminded me at times of Larry Fitzgerald with the way he runs after the catch and uses his body in the red zone.. Wide Receiver. West Virginia. Kevin White
A guy who can run after the catch and make some plays in the red zone sounds like someone the Chiefs could use at wide receiver. Of course, the Chiefs could use just about anything at wide receiver so really any skill he brings to the table is going to fill a need at receiver. The question here is more about how well he can run routes and pick up a complex offense, which may be the two most important things when it comes to adapting to Andy Reid’s offense.
Finding talent at wide receiver is something the Chiefs obviously need to do in the offseason. Measurable be damned, if you can catch the ball and make a play with the ball in your hands then you are good to go to have a shot at making this team. White certainly fits the bill as a guy who made plays in college and those skills may be able to translate into the NFL in the right offense. Whether Reid’s offense is the right one for him is still debatable.
One has to wonder if White will fall to the Chiefs with the 18th overall pick. Some of the buzz around White is he is the second best wide receiver available in the draft after Amari Cooper so White may not even slip past the top 10 picks let alone the first 17. In any event, White certainly fits a need and does have some desirable measurable when it comes to an outside receiver.
However, you do have to wonder if the kind of wide receivers the Chiefs are looking for what be scattered up and down the draft board in the first four rounds. Again, it isn’t going to take much to upgrade this roster at wide receiver and the history of wide receivers suggest you can find them at just about any round.
Antonio Brown, a 5-10, 180 pound receiver who led the NFL in receiving yards this season, was a sixth round pick. Brown also has three 1,000-yard receiving seasons in three of the last four years.
T.Y. Hilton is a 5-10, 183 pound receiver who was taken in the third round and he’s proven to be a pretty solid downfield threat.
Jordy Nelson, Emmanuel Sanders, Randall Cobb, Keenan Allen, Torrey Smith, and several others are examples of very good wide receivers who were not drafted in the first round and could make a case to be the best wide receiver on about 15 teams around the league. It makes one wonder if the Chiefs can’t find ‘first round production’ from a wide receiver with their second and/or third round picks.
Alas, it is wide receiver or bust in these mock drafts. If the Chiefs do end up with White then they’ll definitely have one of the better offensive tools guys in the draft.