The NFL's draft season kicked into full swing this past week with the annual NFL Combine. The combine provides teams and draft prognosticators everywhere with one of the last key pieces of the NFL draft evaluation process. The Kansas City Chiefs find themselves with several positions of need this offseason and it just so happens that a few of those needs line up with positions of strength in the NFL draft where several players stood out at the combine this past week.
With this year's NFL Scouting Combine now in the books, I thought it would be a good time for a Chiefs mock draft.
For this mock I used Pro Football Focus's Mock Draft Simulator. There is no such thing as a perfect mock draft simulator. There are always prospects that I think won't be available at the picks they are, but it's a fun tool to use. To use a player in this official mock, he had to be available for two consecutive runs on the simulator.
So let's kick things off with my first pick, which I'm sure will not meet the approval of some Chiefs fans.
Round 1 - Pick #32 - Kingsley Suamataia - Offensive Tackle - BYU
Kingsley Suamataia transferred to BYU from Oregon after his redshirt freshman year. He then started at right tackle his first season and left tackle this past season. He is 6-foot-5 and 326 pounds with 34" arms (a measurement that Andy Reid has typically required of his starting tackles). He ran an impressive 5.06 forty-yard dash on Sunday at the combine and that athleticism comes through on his game tape as well.
While Suamataia isn't consistently mocked in the first round, his combination of size, power, and movement skills makes him an appealing option after the bigger names come off the board earlier in the first round. He's currently #35 of Arrowhead Addict's Big Board of prospects specifically for the Kansas City Chiefs.
I would be in favor of K.C. trading up in the first round if a tackle like Troy Fautanu of Washington or Amarius Mims of Georgia falls far enough for KC to move up to get them without breaking the bank. However, for my first mock, I decided to use only K.C.'s current picks without any trades. So let's focus on Suamataia a little more.
Suamataia is actually Penei Sewell's cousin and they have trained some together in the past. If that doesn't do it for you, he also has one of those jumping out of a swimming pool videos that shows off his freakish athleticism for a guy his size. Still not impressed? In his NFL combine presser, he revealed he can write with both hands. Okay, that last one doesn't have anything to do with football, but I found it interesting.
The bottom line here is that Suamataia's tape is full of the movement skills that tackles need to pass protect in the NFL and the power to move defenders in the run game. He needs some refinement in his technique and stance (he plays too upright at times), but I trust KC's coaches to get the best out of him and I think he has the tools to be the long-term solution at left tackle.
Now we're on to the second round.
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