The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t taking some huge risk by moving Kahlil McKenzie to offensive line. Multiple teams were thinking the same thing.
One of the storylines coming out of Day 3 of the 2018 NFL Draft for the Kansas City Chiefs centered around their selection of Kahlil McKenzie. Specifically, the pick painted general manager Brett Veach as a bit of a maverick.
Not only did the Chiefs GM once again trade up (and lose picks in the process) to take the player, but then that name turned out to be the son of a rival GM, Reggie McKenzie of the Oakland Raiders. It felt like a perfect troll job that was then taken one step further, when it was announced that McKenzie was, in fact, a guard.
That was news to everyone who had watched McKenzie do nothing but line up on the defensive line for the University of Tennessee for the past few years. The Chiefs not only used a sixth round pick, but lost another one to do so and trade up only to take a rival exec’s son and flip him to the other side of the ball. If any move in the draft felt like a GM saying “watch this!”, it was the McKenzie selection.
In the days after the draft, however, the idea of McKenzie as an offensive lineman is sounding less and less far-fetched.
First of all, McKenzie admitted that his own family, including his father, has told him that he should try playing offensive line. Then it was clear that other teams had the same vision as Veach, which means it was apparently fairly well circulated among personnel execs that McKenzie was an option for potential o-line help for teams interested in taking on such an experiment.
Check out McKenzie’s comments when asked about his pro day and how teams began to see him as an offensive player:
"“My dad and uncle both thought it would be cool to see me play offensive line, and they always thought that if I wanted to make that switch, I could. When I got to the Pro Day, some teams asks me – Chiefs being one of them – to work out as an offensive lineman. I did those drills, and they felt really good…“There were some teams that I knew I would be looked at at guard, and then there were some teams that would look at me as a defensive tackle. So, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but it was more a surprise because you don’t know where you’re going to end up.”"
While Veach might have taken a risk here or at least moved up to take a known project, the posturing of this as some far-fetched idea or some mad scientist scheme is way off base. McKenzie was known around the league as having the qualities of a potential offensive line prospect, and Veach chose to allow his coaches to try it out. Veach might be aggressive and a risk-taker, but the McKenzie evidence isn’t as outrageous as it has been made out to be.