Kansas City Chiefs rookie profile: D.J. Alexander
When the Kansas City Chiefs selected Oregon State linebacker D.J. Alexander with their second compensatory pick in the 5th round of the NFL Draft my initial response was:
“Who?!?!”
Anyone who is being honest will admit to being completely surprised by the pick, not that they took a second linebacker (after taking Ramik Wilson in the 4th), but that they took a player that didn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar.
I’m not saying that to be dramatic either. This is the third rookie profile that I’ve done for this draft class (you can check out Steven Nelson and Chris Conley if you missed them) and in those previous profiles I included consensus strengths and weaknesses from various scouting reports. I won’t be including that in this profile because there simply aren’t any of the usual scouting reports available for D.J. Alexander.
One of my favorite draft guides is by CBS’s Dane Brugler. In Brugler’s 2015 guide he did profiles on his top 30 linebackers and ranked a total of 100. D.J. Alexander didn’t make his top 100 at the position. Think about that, the Chiefs took Alexander at pick number 173 overall and at least one expert didn’t even have him ranked in the top 100 at his position. Alexander’s NFL.com draft profile doesn’t include a player grade like it does for most players and his scouting report consists of one brief sentence:
“Made 32 career starts at Oregon State.”
Probably the most informative thing written about D.J. Alexander is THIS “Five Things To Know About” piece that Pete Sweeney did for the Chiefs website. The highlights include his 4.56 forty time (and that he ran track in high school), the fact that he has been referred to as a “special teams demon”, and that he had an issue with stingers in college that eventually led to surgery his junior year.
While those things are interesting to know it doesn’t really give the insight into his play on the field that most die hard fans crave. The only way to get that information then is to watch Alexander in action for yourself. I did just that, watching a total of seven games on draftbreakdown.com. They actually only have one game for D.J. Alexander, but I was able to watch six more by finding games for his teammate Steven Nelson and a few games by offensive players going against the Oregon State defense.
Originally I was going to present this in a typical scouting report format but as I started to put the piece together I found it made more sense to let you do some of the scouting yourself. After all, seeing a player with your own two eyes is worth more than what any blogger can put into words.
By far the most interesting watch when it comes to D.J. Alexander is his game against Stanford from last season. So on the next page you’ll find the entire game from draftbreakdown.com. Underneath the video you’ll find my own personal observations. If you don’t want to watch the entire 6:53 long video and scout Alexander yourself you can use my observations as a watch guide and jump ahead to view the more significant plays.
Next: See D.J. Alexander vs Stanford