What does Tedric Thompson bring to the Kansas City Chiefs?

We asked a Seahawks expert about new Chiefs safety Tedric Thompson.

The Kansas City Chiefs added a new safety to the roster earlier this week with the addition of Tedric Thompson.

Thompson is a former fourth-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks who climbed the depth chart to even make several starts over the last couple seasons. Then again, the Seahawks have also invested more in safety in the last year to completely remake the position, acquiring Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams in the process.

What exactly are the Chiefs getting in Thompson? We reached out to John Gilbert from Field Gulls to tell us more about Thompson’s history, strengths and weaknesses.

Tedric Thompson worked his way to a starting role for the Seahawks, but the team obviously made major moves to completely remake the safety spots in the last several months. What does that tell us about Thompson?

I think a big piece of Thompson’s struggles was the simple fact that in Seattle he was asked to be someone he is not. In 2018 he was tasked with taking over at free safety after Earl Thomas broke his leg in Week 4, and there are very few playmakers on the planet with future Hall of Famer skills like Thomas. Thompson is not particularly fast or explosive, and he certainly doesn’t have the anticipatory instincts of Thomas.

Asking Tedric to attempt to step right in as the lone deep safety in the cover-3 defense Seattle favors was, simply, a mistake. He’s far better suited for a team where he’s asked to man the deep middle by himself far less often.

Was this a cost-cutting measure or do you think the team was ready to cut ties with Thompson?

A piece of it was cost cutting and a piece of it was simply that the team was ready to cut ties with Thompson. He had earned enough playing time over the first three years of his career that he qualified for the Proven Performance Escalator in the CBA, which gave him an automatic salary bump to that of a restricted free agent.

With that in mind, the team had added Quandre Diggs from the Detroit Lions in a midseason trade, while also using a second round pick on Marquise Blair. Add in that 2017 fourth round selection Lano Hill had also apparently passed Thompson on the depth chart, and all of a sudden it’s a situation where he’s the fifth best safety on the depth chart behind Diggs, Bradley McDougald, Blair and Hill.

He had special teams value, but not enough to warrant keeping as a fifth safety with a cap hit of around $2.4M.

What’s a scenario in which Thompson can thrive? And what should the Chiefs never ask of him?

They should avoid asking him to guard the deep middle by himself on an island against opponents sending speedy receivers down the field on vertical routes. Luckily for the Chiefs, he doesn’t have to face off against Tyreek Hill or Mecole Hardman since they’re on the same team, but he had significant struggles against faster receivers like John Ross and Marvin Jones.

You can follow John Gilbert on Twitter here.