Exploring the Kansas City Chiefs lack of investment at cornerback

Investment By Position

There are two ways you can invest in a position in the NFL. The first (and cheapest) option is with draft picks. While there are seven rounds (and undrafted free agents) the most valuable resources in the draft are the picks in the earlier rounds. The second way you can invest in a position is by committing a significant amount of your salary cap space to a player or players at the position.

Below is a breakdown by position group that includes any recent draft picks made in the first three rounds and any players the Chiefs have at that position with any kind of significant cap hit for 2020.

QB – Patrick Mahomes – 1st round pick

RB – Clyde Edwards-Helaire – 1st round pick, Damien Williams – $2.7 million cap hit

WR – Tyreek Hill – $17.7 million cap hit, Sammy Watkins – $17.25 million cap hit, Mecole Hardman – 2nd round pick

TE – Travis Kelce – $11.2 million cap hit

OL – Eric Fisher – $15 million cap hit, Mitchell Schwartz – $10.8 million cap hit, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif – $5.5 million cap hit, Austin Reiter – $3.8 million cap hit, Lucas Niang – 3rd round pick

DT – Chris Jones – $16.1 million cap hit, Derrick Nnadi – 3rd round pick, Khalen Saunders – 3rd round pick

DE – Frank Clark – $19.3 million cap hit and 2 early draft picks traded, Alex Okafor – $7.2 million cap hit, Breeland Speaks – 2nd round pick, Tanoh Kpassagnon – 2nd round pick

LB – Anthony Hitchens – $12.7 million cap hit, Damien Wilson – $5.4 million cap hit, Willie Guy Jr. – 2nd round pick

CB – Beshaud Breeland – $3.0 million cap hit

S – Tyrann Mathieu – $16.3 million cap hit, Daniel Sorensen – $4.75 million cap hit, Juan Thornhill – 2nd round pick

Looking at this list it is clear that there is no other position that the Chiefs have invested less in than cornerback. I don’t think anyone can argue otherwise. So how does that compare to what other teams are doing? Well, I thought I’d look at that, too.