Kansas City Chiefs trade Dee Ford to San Francisco 49ers, per report
By Matt Conner
The Kansas City Chiefs have finally found a home for pass rusher Dee Ford and they’ve reportedly traded him to the 49ers.
The Kansas City Chiefs have reportedly pulled the trigger on a deal that will send Dee Ford away to the San Francisco 49ers are his new home.
The 49ers will reportedly trade a 2020 second-round pick to the Chiefs in exchange for Ford. Clearly, the teams could not agree on compensation enough for this coming draft, so K.C. likely settled on waiting for the better pick in the end.
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The Niners had been one of a couple teams rumored to be interested in Ford in recent days. The Green Bay Packers were the other team often mentioned in rumors, but Green Bay signed two pass rushers on Tuesday with the rumored deals for Preston Smith and Za’Darius Smith—formerly of the Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens respectively. That likely left the Niners as the only serious suitor left at least of those teams known to reporters.
The Chiefs have been working on finding a new home for Ford even after giving him the franchise tag, which meant he was going to spend one more season with the Chiefs at a preset contractual amount of over $15 million. The Chiefs are making significant defensive shifts this offseason, and the primary losses have been the team’s two outside pass rushers in Ford and Justin Houston.
The Chiefs had already jettisoned Houston by releasing him days before trading Ford, so now the Chiefs are starting at a largely empty cupboard when it comes to proven pass rushers on the team. Chris Jones had 15.5 sacks from the defensive interior and will now face more double teams and focus than ever before given the lack of proven talent around him. This means the Chiefs are relying upon former second-round picks Breeland Speaks and Tanoh Kpassagnon to become the pass rushers they were envisioned to be.
Ford entered the NFL as the Chiefs first round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. He set career highs with 7 forced fumbles and 13 sacks in 2018.