The Kansas City Chiefs completely overhauled their secondary in the 2022 offseason. Using picks received from the trade of star wideout Tyreek Hill, Brett Veach and Co. drafted future starters Trent McDuffie, Bryan Cook, and Jaylen Watson and plugged several other holes in the depth chart with Nazeeh Johnson and Joshua Williams. The Chiefs also replaced departed free agent safety Tyrann Mathieu by using a chunk of the cap space saved from the Hill trade, instead signing free agent safety Justin Reid.
Four years later, all of those players are gone. Every single one of them. Not without their accolades, mind you (those acquisitions gathered two Super Bowl rings apiece while playing with the Chiefs), but now the Chiefs find themselves revamping their secondary once again.
The track record of Veach, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and defensive backs coach Dave Merritt speaks for itself. The Chiefs have turned a lot of Day 3 prospects into quality starters, and the team is once again banking on its ability to generate quality players. This offseason’s revamp includes the departure of McDuffie, Cook, and Watson as starters, and while the Chiefs have plenty of bodies to throw into the mix (cornerbacks especially), training camp will tell us a lot about how the depth chart battle will work out.
Among the contenders is fourth-round rookie Jadon Canady, and today we will zoom in on the former Oregon Duck and find out where he fits in.
Canady played a range of different positions for the Ducks, whether at cornerback, nickelback, or as a robber and Cover 2 safety. He also played on all four special teams units, a trait that will certainly benefit him when trying to crack the 53-man roster. With all the new faces in the secondary, there are a lot of jobs up for grabs, so Canady will be looking to get snaps wherever he can make some noise.
The Ceiling for Jadon Canady
Canady checks in at 5'10" and 185 pounds. This is a stature that might remind you of a former Chiefs defensive back previously mentioned in this article: Mathieu. No, I’m not saying Canady will become the next Tyrann Mathieu, but I will point out that no one ever talked about Mathieu’s size. The reason no one ever talked about it was that Mathieu never gave anyone a reason to talk about it. Mathieu played big, took on every blocker, and made plays all over the field.
That’s the type of player the Chiefs are hoping to get in the middle of their secondary with Canady, who probably won’t play outside corner but will certainly be in the mix as a nickelback. He could even tempt Spagnuolo into allowing him to play Mathieu’s robber role, lurking in the middle of the field and relying on Canady’s vision and anticipation to mold him into a playmaking defender.
The most likely scenario for the Chiefs is that Nohl Williams and Mansoor Delane play the boundary, with Kristian Fulton providing depth outside. That leaves players like L'Jarius Sneed, Kader Kohou, and Canady to compete in the slot. So I think the ceiling for Canady is that he gets 10 starts as the team’s starting nickel corner. Kohou, a free-agent veteran from the Dolphins, is a very capable nickel when healthy.
Though he is regarded as a very hard worker, Kohou is coming off a knee injury suffered in the summer of 2025. Sneed is really a huge injury question mark. He has a higher ceiling than most lottery-ticket signees, but he should not be viewed as anything more than a lottery ticket at this time. Veteran Chris Roland-Wallace can play the slot too, but he also played some safety last year and will likely be looked at as a depth piece there even more than at corner. The fact is, the Chiefs are throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks with Kohou, Sneed, and Canady.
The Floor for Jadon Canady
I feel like I need to begin this with the disclaimer that this is not my prediction for how Canady’s season will go. That said, the floor for this player is a role that no player wants any part of.
We’ll begin to unpack this here: Because of his flexibility on special teams, Canady is a near-lock to suit up for the Chiefs every Sunday, even if he’s at the very bottom of the depth chart. As a versatile performer on kickoff and punt teams, as well as field goal block units, Canady will almost certainly be active, provided he’s on the 53-man roster. And while we can’t officially guarantee Canady will make the team’s 53-man roster, the Brett Veach regime has never cut a draftee selected higher than fifth-rounder Cornell Powell in 2021.
Powell was drafted 181st. Canady was taken 109th. If he shows up, he’s making the team. So if we’re certain he makes the team, and we’re certain he’s going to be active on game day, what exactly is his floor?
Here’s where it gets ugly. Canady’s floor is that he becomes "that guy" in the eyes of the fanbase. You know the one. The Chiefs haven’t had "that guy" on defense since Dan Sorensen and Ben Niemann were here. Before them it was Orlando Scandrick; before that it was Philip Gaines. The guy who makes you yell at your TV, "Why is that guy on the field?" The fact is, Canady is already 23 years old, isn’t very big, and doesn’t have elite speed to compensate for it. His angles in the run game leave a lot of room for growth, and he will miss some tackles. If the jump to the NFL is too overwhelming for him in Year 1, he can quickly find himself out of favor with Chiefs fans.
The hope here is that Canady’s intelligence and ball skills win out and that his game translates into a quality NFL nickel corner. Even if he can’t beat out Kohou, I do think Canady will get plenty of snaps in the secondary and will see the field as a special-teamer all season long. Here’s hoping that he’s got a little of that Honey Badger attitude deep down inside.
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