A top tight end is taken
Some might not term this a real surprise considering the strength of the tight end position, but for a team with significant needs at very important positions, it would be at least a mild surprise for most people (and a greater surprise for some of us) if the Chiefs really did believe that taking a tight end was the best use of a first-round pick at this point.
Yes, there are talented tight ends here, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a single team who was happy with such an investment in recent years. Here’s every first-round tight from the last 15 years. Is there a single team from that group that would remake that pick?
- Dustin Keller
- Brandon Pettigrew
- Jermaine Gresham
- Tyler Eifert
- Eric Ebron
- David Njoku
- Evan Engram
- O.J. Howard
- Hayden Hurst
- Noah Fant
- T.J. Hockenson
- Kyle Pitts
You’d have to go back 16 years to find Greg Olsen and the Carolina Panthers as the last team to likely be pleased with their choice to take a TE so early in the draft.
For the Chiefs, it sounds great to come up with Travis Kelce’s successor just in case, but when you have very real roster holes (e.g. right tackle, edge rusher, wide receiver), and your All-Pro tight end is setting personal highs, you can bump that choice for a year (or down a round) and take care of a bigger issue—no matter how talented someone like Dalton Kincaid might be.