Position groups the Chiefs showed faith in

Whether it be the trade backs or just common sense, it’s pretty clear that the Kansas City Chiefs’ (or any NFL team really) draft board didn’t fall as planned.

This is basically standard every year for the draft, as all teams evaluate players a little differently and are often rounds apart on their final grades. They may have been targeting a certain player or position in any round and it just didn’t work out and had to ‘reach’ on a guy, but we’ll never exactly know.

I know John Dorsey said there were two guys in the first round they were really targeting but while we can speculate and give our best guess on who they are we’ll never know for sure. That’s just how things are when you’re any team not run by Jerry Jones.

So, when looking back and analyzing the Chiefs’ draft class and strategy, all we can really go off of is who they took and where. The Chiefs ended up going DL, CB, OL, CB, WR, QB, RB/WR, CB, OLB. As far as how this speaks to the roster going into the draft and positions that they were already comfortable with, four groups stand out to me. Let’s see what they are.

Backup Tight End

Behind Pro-Bowler Travis Kelce, there’s still a little uncertainty as to what the Chiefs really have in the trio of Demetrius Harris, James O’Shaughnessy, and Brian Parker. While Harris and O’Shaughnessy in particular still have a lot of potential, some expected a tight end to be brought in either through free agency or the draft to compete with their young backups. Well, that didn’t happen, even despite some intriguing guys like Jerell Adams, Beau Sandland, and Jake McGee available late in the draft. To me, this shows trust in the development of their tight ends to continue to run two and three tight end sets and utilize Harris and O’Shaughnessy as vertical threats while they improve their blocking.

Guard

Parker Ehinger is a guy who I think is expected to come in and compete but not necessarily win a starting guard position right away. That being said, it seems like the Chiefs are really hoping for Jah Reid and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif to step up and hold both guard spots down. Regardless of how comfortable you are with these two players (I’m more than comfortable with Reid), we really should expect them both in the starting lineup Week 1 at guard barring injury or a standout training camp from Ehinger, Zach Fulton, Laurence Gibson, or Jarrod Pughsley.

Some of you, including myself, have pondered the idea of moving Mitch Morse to guard with Fulton at center, but it doesn’t seem like that’s in the plans so it looks like the Chiefs are rolling with the returning guards from last season.

Next: More talkin!