When it comes to the Kansas City Chiefs and the 2026 NFL Draft, most fans are probably fixated on what Brett Veach and the team are going to do with the ninth overall pick. After all, it's been a long time since the Chiefs have owned a top-10 pick so these are pretty exciting times that we're living in as far as draft conversations go.
Fans might be forgetting that Kansas City owns an additional first-round pick, No. 29 overall, thanks to the trade they made with the Rams. K.C. sent Trent McDuffie to Los Angeles and the 29th pick was part of the trade package. What will the Chiefs opt to do with their late first-round selection?
The Chiefs could possibly benefit from the quarterback-needy teams getting scared and wanting to trade back into the first round. One team that could be eyeing a trade to get into the tail end of round one are the Arizona Cardinals, who own the 34th pick (or pick two) in the second round.
Chiefs could swap spots in draft with quarterback-needy Cardinals
If the Cardinals pass on taking Ty Simpson third overall and he continues to plummet down the draft boards, that could prompt Arizona to make a move back into round one. If so, Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort might be ringing up Veach on draft night to move to the 29th spot while K.C. would move back five spots.
The Chiefs are used to sitting around and waiting to draft at the end of the first round but this year is different, as the pick they earned from their lackluster 2025 season is earlier on. That could give them the bandwidth to easily move around and let a quarterback-needy team, whether it be the Cardinals or even the Jets, swap spots with them.
This would allow the Chiefs to move back and add another selection and maybe even still get the target they're aiming for. We've seen Veach do this before so it wouldn't be all that shocking and could help put the Chiefs in a nice position moving forward.
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