3 offensive crushes for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2024 NFL Draft
With less than two weeks to go until the 2024 NFL Draft, teams are tightening up their big boards and making final preparations. The world champion Kansas City Chiefs have a solid roster, but a few problem areas to attend to. Today, we'll take a look at a few of my favorite offensive prospects for the Chiefs.
The 2024 NFL Draft is approaching, and the past six weeks have been suffused with shop talk about prospects, draft metrics, and mock drafts. Much of that, in this corner of the woods, has centered around what the Kansas City Chiefs will do with the 32nd pick, and overall with their full draft class.
The two-time defending world champions have a solid roster heading into the draft, but there are a few important positions that demand reinforcements. For the next several minutes, we'll dig into a few offensive prospects I like for Kansas City.
Depending on who you ask, there are three to five offensive positions where Kansas City could realistically invest draft capital. Their most pressing needs are at wide receiver, left tackle, running back, and offensive guard.
An argument can be made that tight end could reasonably be added to that list. Travis Kelce will be 35 years old come October, Noah Gray is in the final year of his contract, and newcomer Irv Smith, Jr. was only brought on for the 2024 season.
For the sake of brevity, we'll focus on wide receiver, running back, and left tackle.
Xavier Legette, Wide Receiver, South Carolina
Draft Projection: Round 1-2
The 2023 season revealed that wide receiver is one of the weakest position groups on the team's roster. As it stands, second-year man Rashee Rice is likely facing a suspension, veteran Marquez Valdes-Scantling is on the open market, and Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney have raised more questions than they've answered. Free agency brought the talented Marquise "Hollywood" Brown to Kansas City. His addition creates a stronger receiving corps than this time a year ago, but there's still room for the Chiefs to go back to the well.
South Carolina wide receiver Xavier Legette is one of my favorite prospects in this 2024 class. Listed at 6-foot-1, 217 pounds, Legette has a rare combination of size and speed. His ability to win in contested catch and 50/50 ball situations is intriguing. Justyn Ross might be the only Chiefs player who can reliably thrive in those situations, but he hasn't had much opportunity to demonstrate that it in live-game action.
Legette is impressive with the ball in hand and can create chunk plays after the catch. Xavier Legette doesn't have the elite 40-time some of his counterparts boast, but he did record the fastest ballcarrier speed of the college season at 22.3 miles per hour. To put that in perspective, that was the fastest time recorded in either the NFL or the NCAA in 2023.
To be fair, Legette will occasionally have a concentration drop and only had significant production in his final season at South Carolina. He may be more of a project as a Top-75 pick than some would like, but the way the room is presently constructed, I think he's worth the gamble for Kansas City. I see a lot of Rashee Rice in him, with even more physicality and the ability to climb the ladder and take the ball away from a defender.
Two Games to Watch:
South Carolina vs. North Carolina
South Carolina vs. Mississippi State
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