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Kansas City Chiefs: Analyzing Andy Reid’s historic use of rookies

By Lyle Graversen

DAVIE, FLORIDA - JANUARY 30: Head Coach Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs looks on during the Kansas City Chiefs practice prior to Super Bowl LIV at Baptist Health Training Facility at Nova Southern University on January 30, 2020 in Davie, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)
DAVIE, FLORIDA - JANUARY 30: Head Coach Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs looks on during the Kansas City Chiefs practice prior to Super Bowl LIV at Baptist Health Training Facility at Nova Southern University on January 30, 2020 in Davie, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images) /
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MIAMI, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 02: Head coach Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs gets dunked in Gatorade after defeating the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 02: Head coach Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs gets dunked in Gatorade after defeating the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /

When looking at what we should expect from the Kansas City Chiefs 2020 draft class, what can we learn from Andy Reid’s use of rookies throughout his career?

The Kansas City Chiefs added six new players in the 2020 NFL Draft. With little else happening in the sports world right now, there continues to be lots of discussion on what we can expect from this incoming class of players.

While a player’s long term success with the team is the most important factor in figuring out if a pick was successful or not, that is something that there is simply no evidence at this point to explore. However, the Chiefs find themselves in a unique position, in that they were seen as a team poised to compete for another Super Bowl even before they added players through the draft. The Chiefs are in a “run it back” mindset.

Assuming the season continues as planned, Chiefs fans find themselves excited about the prospects of the coming season and how these newly added players can help an already loaded roster in an attempt to repeat as Super Bowl champions. While a lot of factors play into how much a rookie contributes (their talent, their “NFL readiness”, depth at their position, injuries, etc.) the Chiefs are a team that has a head coach with a lengthy career, one we can look back on to gain some insight into his use of rookies.

The 2020 NFL draft class was the 22nd of Andy Reid‘s head coaching career. That means we have 21 previous drafts worth of background information that we can use to see how he has used rookies. We can look at how he’s used them by position and where they were drafted in the draft—and that’s exactly what I’m going to do in this post.

Over the past week, I went back over every draft class of Reid’s career and logged what round and position a player was taken in and then how many games he was active for and starts that he made his rookie year. I also did a little number crunching on some players so we could see if their production might be a good predictor of what some of K.C.’s rookies this season might do. In fact, I’ll take a look at all six of this year’s draft picks and see specifically what Reid’s use of rookies over his 20+ years could mean for that player.

Before we get to those specifics, let’s first look at a breakdown of how much rookies have played/started for Reid based on what round they were taken in.

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