Could Jordan Davis really fall to KC Chiefs in first round?

Jordan Davis is a freak of an athlete, a marvel of a prospect expected to completely dominate up front at the professional level in the run game and perhaps more after doing the same at the highest levels of college football while at Georgia. Given his ultra-rare blend of size, strength, and athleticism, he’s been projected to go off the board well before the Kansas City Chiefs could ever have him in their sights.

Then again, what if it was a possibility?

The latest mock draft from Kyle Stackpole at CBS Sports has the Georgia defensive tackle falling all the way to Kansas City at No. 30 overall without even having to trade up, which would be a gift from the gods if that were to happen in real life. Then again, maybe there is a real shot since Davis also doesn’t play a position considered to be. a premium in today’s NFL.

Could defensive tackle Jordan Davis really fall to the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round? The latest mock from CBS thinks so.

The Chiefs are in the midst of an offseason in which they hope to remake their defensive line in order to produce better results than last year. Much of that work is still not yet underway. After the first week of free agency, it largely looks the same as last year, since the Chiefs decided to bring back defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi and keep Frank Clark on a restructured deal. If the team follows through on their stated desires to re-sign Melvin Ingram, it will look very much like the 2021 line all over again.

However, the Chiefs haven’t yet wrapped up their activity in free agency and they also have nine picks in the NFL Draft with which they can remake their defensive line. Grabbing Jordan Davis in the first round would go a long, long way toward restacking the line on defense.

Davis is a beast at 6’6, 341 lbs. whose size alone makes him an asset, but it’s the full package that makes him such an anomaly. His pre-draft measurables were jaw-dropping (consider a 40-yard dash time of 4.78 seconds or a 32-inch vertical leap) and even his hands are huge to help tip the ball at the line of scrimmage or bring down the ball-carrier with one arm. He’s got loads of experience against the best at the college level, and he has been an improved disruptor in the last year as a pass rusher.

There are concerns about the limit to his impact knowing that stamina will be an ongoing concern, but if a team could work with him to build that over time, his impact could be better than any present projections. Stackpole writes about this in his mock draft:

"Davis won’t provide much of anything as a pass rusher, at least not right away, but playing him on the same defensive line as Chris Jones and Frank Clark will make everyone’s life easier (and everyone else in the AFC West’s lives harder)."

While it’s not the cornerback or edge rusher of the future that most fans are wanting to see in the first round, Davis would be a dynamic interior presence that would shift the ceiling for what the Chiefs can do up front (and most importantly, what opponents can do against them). However, this is also a mock draft with several quarterbacks taken in the first round, which is why some key players have dropped farther than expected. Will that really happen? It doesn’t seem likely but that’s what makes the draft so compelling is the mystery of it all.