The K.C. Chiefs finished the 2016 season with a 12-4 record an an AFC West Championship. Unfortunately, due in large part to a stagnant offense, the team was eliminated by the Pittsburgh Steelers in their Divisional Round playoff game by a score of 18-16. As such, Kansas City entered the 2017 NFL Draft with major questions about the future of the team from top to bottom. It seemed next to no starters were locks to start the following year, and general manager John Dorsey had myriad options to improve the team via the draft.
For Chiefs fans who assumed that they could skip out on the first two hours of draft coverage since the Chiefs weren’t picking until 27th overall, they were surprised to learn that they missed the biggest draft move in franchise history.
The 2017 NFL Draft will always be remembered for the fateful trade that catapulted the Chiefs from pick 27 all the way up to pick number 10, where they decided to take a chance on a young “gunslinger” from Texas Tech named Patrick Mahomes. It altered the landscape of the NFL, and the trajectory of the franchise in perpetuity.
But taking their future franchise quarterback was just the first pick the team made that weekend, as they also made five other selections that weekend.
Sixth Round – 218th Overall – Leon McQuay, Safety
With their last pick of the 2017 draft, the Chiefs took safety Leon McQuay from the University of Southern California. The former Trojan was a bust in the NFL, where he played in only one game for Kansas City and never made another NFL roster. He went on and off the Chiefs practice squad through May of 2019, but once he was cut that time, his time in the league was over.
Fifth Round – 183rd Overall – Ukeme Eligwe, Linebacker
The sixth round selection wasn’t the only swing-and-miss for Dorsey and the Chiefs in 2017. The team also missed pretty egregiously in the fifth round, when they used pick number 183 on Georgia Southern linebacker Ukeme Eligwe. What’s worse, the team traded up to the spot to secure the rights to the linebacker. While Eligwe was more productive than the sixth round safety ever was, he still failed to make a significant impact for Kansas City or in the NFL.
Eligwe spent the 2017 season with the Chiefs where he earned only one start, but did appear in 14 of the team’s 16 games. He was a solid contributor for the team that year but he failed to make the active roster in 2018, becoming a casualty of the final round of roster cuts. He spent the 2018 season with the New York Giants where he appeared in 10 games, but was again cut in the offseason. After stints in which he did not appear in a game with the New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders, Eligwe is currently a free agent after being cut by Vegas in March.
Fourth Round – 139th Overall – Jehu Chesson, Wide Receiver
The Chiefs also traded up into the draft’s fourth round, giving up two fifth round selections for the rights to draft Michigan wide receiver Jehu Chesson. This was widely regarded as a sneaky good draft pick with the potential to become a legitimate steal. But, unfortunately for Kansas City, the prognosticators were very wrong.
Chesson appeared in 12 games including one start for Kansas City in 2017, but made only two receptions in his rookie season. Like Eligwe, the Chiefs cut Chesson in their final set of roster cuts prior to the 2018 season. The Washington Football team picked up the former Wolverine and he spent another unproductive season in the NFL as a reserve wideout in the nation’s capitol. He recorded only one reception in 12 games there, though, and failed to stick with Washington after the season.
After spending 2019 out of the league, Chesson signed on with the New York Jets at the start of the 2020 offseason, but did not play in the 2020 season. He is not currently on an NFL roster.
Third Round – 86th Overall – Kareem Hunt, Running Back
While the second half of the draft was incredibly unproductive for Kansas City selections, the first half was anything but. With the 86th overall pick in the third round, the Kansas City Chiefs took a chance on running back Kareem Hunt from Toledo. Hunt displayed all the skills necessary to be a productive back in college, but was pushed down draft boards primarily due to the perception of lack of competition in the MAC.
Everyone was wrong, and Hunt didn’t take long to prove it as Hunt exploded onto the scene in Week 1 and led the NFL in rushing in 2017, amassing over 1,300 yards on the ground and another 450 receiving. He also scored 11 touchdowns that year. It really looked like Hunt was the steal of the ’17 draft.
When 2018 commenced and the Chiefs had a new quarterback at the helm, the team looked unstoppable with Hunt, wide receiving Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce leading the offense. Through 11 games of his sophomore season, Hunt had over 800 yards rushing and 1,200 total yards from scrimmage which meant there was no sophomore slump to speak of.
But it was not all sunshine and roses for the Chiefs. Hunt was a young man with inner demons the team did not perceive, and after their starting running back was seen on video assaulting a woman in a hotel hallway, he was summarily dismissed from the organization. The Cleveland Browns took a chance on Hunt and, after he served an 8-game suspension, he returned to action. In 2019, the former league rushing leader showed flashes of his rookie self, and turned in a very productive season as the complimentary back for the Browns.
While the Chiefs did not get all the production they’d hoped to out of Hunt, he was a tremendously productive third round pick in the one and half years he spent in Kansas City.
Second Round – 59th Overall – Tanoh Kpassagnon, Defensive End
After making the biggest splash of the draft’s first round, the Chiefs took a major chance on Villanova pass rusher Tanoh Kpassagnon, who was short on experience and stats but high in athletic potential. John Dorsey fell in love with his size and athleticism and reached for the rusher with the 59th overall pick.
It wouldn’t be fair to call Tanoh a bust, per se. However, in his time in Kansas City, he certainly never lived up to the high draft investment, either. In four seasons with the Chiefs, Kpassagnon played in 61 of 64 regular season including 15 starts a season ago. While he never blossomed into a prolific pass rusher, he did register seven sacks, 12 tackles for loss and 18 quarterback hits in his time with the Chiefs.
Kansas City chose not to resign their 2017 second round pick this offseason, and he has since signed with the New Orleans Saints for the 2021 season. Importantly, however, Kpassagnon was integral to the rebirth of the Chiefs defense under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, which was pivotal in helping the Chiefs capture the Lombardi trophy as winners of Super Bowl LIV.
First Round – 10th Overall – Patrick Mahomes, Quarterback
When it was announced that the Buffalo Bills had traded the 10th overall pick to the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for the 27th overall pick, a third round pick, and a 2018 first round pick, everyone in the football world knew that Andy Reid had identified his quarterback of the future. The only question remaining was, was it the Texas Tech Gunslinger or the much more experienced (and more celebrated) signal caller from Clemson.
We all know now, of course, that Reid, Dorsey and future general manager Brett Veach were not focused on Deshaun Watson. Instead had their eyes firmly locked on Patrick Mahomes. So, for the first time since 1984, Kansas City selected a first round quarterback. Only this time, they could not have been more right about their choice.
Volumes have been written about what Patrick Mahomes has accomplished in his four year NFL career. We will not rehash all of that here, but in case you need a brief bio, in three years as the starter in Kansas City, he has been to three AFC Championship Games and two Super Bowls. He’s won a league MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and a Super Bowl Championship. Quite literally, there has never been another quarterback with such a start in NFL history, and, few quarterbacks will ever reach the level that Mahomes has already achieved.
Four years later and now the owner of the largest contract in NFL history, Mahomes has already cemented his legacy in Kansas City. While the Chiefs relieved general manager John Dorsey of his duties shortly after the draft, the selection of Mahomes will always ensure that Dorsey, one of the NFL’s truly great talent evaluators, has a place in the team’s history books.
The future will tell what Mahomes ultimately becomes in the spectrum of NFL greats, but for now one thing is definitively clear: the Chiefs hit a home run in the 2017 draft.
Final Grade – A+
I toggled between an A and an A+ for this grade. No, the Chiefs didn’t hit on every draft pick and yes, you may even argue that Mahomes was the only real “hit” of the group. But he was the hit at the most important position in all of professional sports.
A team cannot win without a franchise quarterback. No other draft pick matters if the team cannot get this one correct. So, while Kansas City absolutely missed on three picks and had other picks of questionable (or at least limited) value to the franchise, it does not matter. That the Chiefs were so right about the biggest swing the franchise had taken, maybe ever in the draft, is enough to secure this class as one of the best in franchise history.
Without this draft pick, we can unequivocally say that the Chiefs would still be nursing a now 51-year Super Bowl drought, and the state of the franchise would have a much different outlook. Many would argue that Mahomes is already the greatest Chiefs player in the organization’s history and, because of that, Kansas City gets an A+ for the 2017 NFL Draft.