The Kansas City Chiefs are reportedly interested in pass rusher Markus Golden on the free agent market, per Terez Paylor of Yahoo! Sports.
The Kansas City Chiefs are primarily focused on the secondary thus far in free agency, given the signing of defensive back Tyrann Mathieu and visits from cornerback Ronald Darby and Jason Verrett—which has yet to happen. Now, however, Terez Paylor has word that the Chiefs are also interested in checking out pass rushers, or at least one in Markus Golden.
Golden is a familiar name around the region already as a St. Louis native and product of the University of Missouri, where he earned second-team All-SEC honors and a Citrus Bowl MVP trophy his final year.
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The Arizona Cardinals selected Golden in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft, and while he has grown as a pass rusher at the NFL level, a torn ACL has stunted his overall development over the last two years. In 2018, he started 11 games after coming back from rehab and had only 2.5 sacks and 6 other quarterback hits on the year.
Golden has, however, shown significant productivity in the past with a 12.5 sack year in his sophomore season in the NFL. At the time, Golden was an ideal young edge rusher the team was going to partner with Chandler Jones for quite some time. Then came the ACL tear and subsequent time lost (plus dip in production). Now he’s hit the free agent market at a time when no one is quite sure what to make of his future.
It’s unknown whether Golden would accept a one-year deal to bet on himself, but doing so could provide an ideal scenario for Kansas City to buy low on a motivated player. Golden would be home, so to speak, and able to show a team with a great need at his position what he can do. He would also be able to chase a ring in the process since the Chiefs are expected to compete for the AFC title.