Editor note: We are re-running Lyle’s great piece both Wednesday and Thursday. Use it as a guide to see where the Chiefs might be going!
Kansas City Chiefs fans, the 2015 NFL Draft is almost here! On Thursday, there will be no more mock drafts and no more arguments over which positions should be targeted. We will finally have actual players added to the Chiefs roster to study (and of course there will be the draft “grades” to debate). So as the draft draws near I thought I would give you one more look at which players may be likely picks for KC next week.
This post came about after reading a couple different pieces here at Arrowhead Addict that centered around the best player available (BPA) draft philosophy. The first was by Ben Almquist, titled Chiefs Draft: John Dorsey Does More Than Talk About ‘Best Player Available’. It’s a great read and makes a strong case for John Dorsey taking the BPA, regardless of position. Then last week Stacy Smith gave us NFL Draft: Is BPA really the best policy? In this post Reach spells out multiple considerations that come into play when trying to figure out who the best draft pick for a team is.
Those posts got me thinking about a couple of things. First, which players are most likely to be the best players available when the Chiefs are on the clock? Second, just how strict will John Dorsey be to the BPA philosophy? Here’s my take on that second question:
Let’s say that the Chiefs grade every player on a scale of 1-100. When the Chiefs are on the clock at pick number 18 if there is one player on the board with a grade of 97 and the second best player on the board they have graded out at 91, they are taking that top graded player regardless of position. Does that mean that I can see a situation where Dorsey could shock Chiefs fans by taking someone like a Todd Gurley despite the perceived lack of need at that position? Yes, yes I can (that will probably send the comments section into overdrive).
However, if they have Gurley graded out at a 94, and an offensive lineman or cornerback is second at a 93, then I would guess that Dorsey would take the player that is near the top of the big board at the position of need over the true BPA at a position of lesser need. I do NOT believe that John Dorsey will ever reach for a position. So anyone saying they are sure the Chiefs will draft (insert position of your choice) in the first round is asking to be disappointed. I don’t think Dorsey would ever take the 10th best player on his board simply to fill a position.
So with those things in mind I set out to see if I could find out which players were the most likely to meet the BPA philosophy and might be positions that the Chiefs would like to upgrade. To do this I decided to build my own composite top 100 big board. I went through the latest big boards by people like Rob Rang, Dane Brugler, Matt Miller, Daniel Jeremiah, Mike Loyko, Drafttek, Walterfootball, Ourlads, and Fanspeak. I averaged out the rankings to come up with the following top 100 big board that we can use to shine a spotlight on possible Chiefs picks.
Next: Click Here For Composite Big Board 1-32