The Kansas City Chiefs have swung and missed on some 1st round picks in a major way throughout their 60 years – who were the greatest disasters?
Voluminous texts have been written dissecting and reanalyzing NFL draft picks since the dawn of the NFL’s annual selection meeting took off as a spectator sport in 1980 with the first televised live NFL Draft.
In that time, every NFL team has garnered praise, been the subject of mass criticism, hit huge home runs and struck out in epic fashion with selections they’ve made throughout the various rounds of the draft. From some of the biggest disappointments like Ki-Jana Carter in 1995 to the biggest steals like Tom Brady in 2000, every draft pick has a story, and hindsight and revisionism are inevitable.
The Kansas City Chiefs are no exception to this rule. We have recently reviewed some of the franchise’s best first round selections, but the Chiefs have not been successful every time they’ve made one of the first few selections in the draft. In fact, they have made some of the biggest errors in judgment and evaluation in NFL history.
But who among the team’s 52 first round selections stand out as the most epically poor choices in the draft’s history?
Honorable mention selections can be given to the selections of defensive end Gene Trosch in 1967, offensive lineman Rod Walters in 1976, offensive lineman Brian Jozwiak in 1986, and linebacker Percy Snow in 1990. None of these players made it more than four seasons in Kansas City or the NFL, and none of these players started in more than seven career games (according to Pro Football Reference).
#5 – Ryan Sims, Defensive Tackle
With the sixth overall pick in the 2002 NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs selected University of North Carolina defensive tackle Ryan Sims. Sims was the second UNC defensive lineman taken in the top six that year, after his Tarheel teammate Julius Peppers was taken second overall by the Carolina Panthers.
Prior to the draft, UNC head coach John Bunting told Sports Illustrated, “People ask me all the time who I would draft if I could pick between Julius and Ryan…I tell them that plays leading to negative yardage are big, and a pass rusher like Julius can create a lot of them. But at this moment, there’s no question that Ryan is a more complete player than Julius.”
Eighteen years later, it is easy to criticize bunting for such a claim and the Panthers are certainly happy they ignored his advice. Peppers, of course, is on his way to the Hall of Fame. Ryan Sims on the other hand, well, he’s not.
Sims did manage to stay in the league for nine seasons, but only five in Kansas City, and he only recorded five sacks in that time. He was wholly ineffective for the Chiefs. He started only two seasons, played in 16 games just twice in his nine year career; and missed a staggering 21 games in five seasons with Kansas City.
What makes the Sims selection worse is not just his high draft status, but also that the Chiefs gave up a 3rd and a 6th round selection to the Dallas Cowboys to move up two spots (from number eight) to take the former ACC standout.
No draft analysis is complete without looking at who the Chiefs could have taken with the selection. Among those missed include Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed, and fringe Hall of Famers Albert Haynesworth and Dwight Freeney.
#4 – Trezelle Jenkins, Tackle
The 1995 draft was a memorable one for a lot of teams. Unfortunately for the Kansas City Chiefs, it’s memorable for all of the wrong reasons.
Kansas City acquired the 31st overall pick from the Jacksonville Jaguars, along with the Jags’ third and fourth round selections that year, and their fourth round pick the following year (which the Chiefs then traded). The Jaguars took running back James Stewart with the pick, who rushed for nearly 6,000 yards and 48 touchdowns in his eight-year NFL career.
The Chiefs used those three selections to take linebacker Troy Dumas (3rd), quarterback Steve Stenstrom (4th), and offensive tackle Trezelle Jenkins (1st). The three combined to start 11 total NFL games and only one game (Jenkins) for the Chiefs (Stenstrom started 10 combined for the Bears and 49ers.) They played in a combined 42 NFL games in their combined nine years of NFL service. That’s a bad trade.
Jenkins in particularly was memorably horrendous. Over three seasons in Kansas City he played in a mere nine games, was cut after the 1997 season, and never played in the NFL again.
With the selection Kansas City could have acquired the services of All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Freeman or had the choice of Hall of Fame running backs Curtis Martin or Terrell Davis, who would eventually be drafted in the 3rd and 6th rounds respectively.
#3 – Sylvester Morris, Wide Receiver
The 2000 NFL Draft will always be remembered as having the greatest draft gaff, and steal, in NFL history. With the 199th selection in the 6th round that year, the New England Patriots drafted an unheralded quarterback from the University of Michigan named Tom Brady. All Brady has done since then is become the most decorated quarterback in the history of the NFL.
Given that every team in the NFL passed on Brady at least five times, it would be unfair to judge the Chiefs’ first round selection based solely on that miss. Fortunately for the purposes of this analysis, their use of the 21st selection on Jackson State wide receiver Sylvester Morris gives us plenty of fodder for criticism and blame on its own.
Morris played in only one NFL season, despite being on the Chiefs’ roster for four years. Unfortunately for him, and the team, repeated knee injuries kept him off the field and ultimately cut his career short. Without those injuries, perhaps his career could have taken off. He accumulated 48 catches, 678 yards and 3 touchdowns in 15 games with the team.
Beyond Brady, other players the Chiefs could have taken with the selection include All-Pro linebacker Keith Bullock, linebacker Adalius Thomas, and safety Mike Brown.
#2 – Jonathan Baldwin, Wide Receiver
The target of innumerable Chiefs memes since the conclusion of Super Bowl LIV, and in the wake of the coronavirus, we suspect Kansas City fans would not have been so quick to jump on former All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman had their team drafted him in the 1st round of the 2011 draft.
Instead, one of the greatest cornerbacks in NFL history fell all the way to the 5th, and the Chiefs used the 26th overall selection on Pittsburgh wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin.
Baldwin was a train wreck of a selection from the minute he entered the pros, and after a mere two seasons in the league, the Chiefs traded Baldwin to the 49ers for their failed 1st round receiver AJ Jenkins. The next year Baldwin was cut from San Francisco and never played again. (Jenkins, too, lasted only one season with his new team and left the NFL.)
Unfortunately for Baldwin, his rookie year began with a locker room fight with Thomas Jones that kept him out for the first five games and he never developed thereafter. In three seasons, Baldwin played in 33 games, had only 44 receptions for 607 yards and 2 touchdowns.
In addition to Sherman, the Chiefs also passed on All-Pro stars like: Cameron Heyward, Demarco Murray, or Jason Kelce.
The only saving grace of this selection is that the Chiefs traded down from 21st, picked up an extra 3rd round selection and took All-Pro pass rusher Justin Houston with the pick.
#1 – Todd Blackledge, Quarterback
The 1983 NFL Draft will always be remembered as the year of the quarterback, with six signal callers being selected in the 1st round that year. It will also always be remembered as one of the greatest draft classes in NFL history, with no less than six and as many as nine current or future NFL Hall of Famers taken in the selection process.
Unfortunately for Kansas City, they did not select a future Hall of Famer and also selected the worst of the six quarterbacks.
Todd Blackledge was the 7th overall selection in the ’83 draft. Coming out of Penn State, Blackledge was one of the most heralded prospects that year. He did manage to stick around the league for seven years, including five with the Chiefs, but was never even an average NFL quarterback. He had a career completion percentage under 50%, and had a 29-38 career touchdown to interception ratio.
As bad as he was, Blackledge is most often remembered for who Kansas City passed up to take him. In addition to Hall of Fame quarterbacks Jim Kelly and Dan Mario, other first round Hall of Famers taken after Blackledge that year included offensive lineman Bruce Matthews and defensive back Darrell Green.
Its fair to say the Chiefs, and many other teams, missed on their first round pick that year.