Chiefs: I’m Free, Free Falling

Chiefs: I’m Free, Free Falling

by Laddie Morse | April 20, 2019

Chiefs: I’m Free, Free Falling. It happens every year. Someone in the first round falls down the NFL draft board. It could be reefer madness issues or a medical issue, or perhaps other concerns but no matter what it is, it affects the whole draft board and changes how the prospects come off on draft day. The question is, how will that kind of free fall affect the Kansas City Chiefs this year?  

The most prominent prospect to experience this free falling phenomena is DL Montez Sweat. From Pro Football Talk:

While it’s always a bit sad to see how questions arise surrounding a prospect who is on the precipice of making their dreams come true, it also raises questions for teams drafting further down the draft board. In the case of Montez Sweat, it makes you wonder if he could end up being drafted by the Chiefs anyway? After all, he could be a huge upgrade at a position of need.

Montez Sweat is not the only prospect who may be falling. Sometimes a player falls for unknown reasons. It could be just that they aren’t getting good press the week before the draft. QB Dwayne Haskins is a good example of that. I suspect that the ascendance of Kyler Murray and all the talk that has come with his being likely selected as the first player in the draft has brought Haskins down a peg. I’m glad that Dan Orlovsky has highlighted Haskins football IQ in this vid:

There are others who may be falling as well. Here are a couple of screen captures of the prospects made available on FanSpeak when I went to mock at #29 on separate occasions:

These are typical offerings in all my mocking this spring at FanSpeak. It raises the question why would prospects like TJ Hockenson or Jeffrey Simmons be available at #29 when they are ranked in the top ten? As I have intimated, this is not a one time happening either. In any case, if these guys were to fall into the 20s I’d expect Chiefs GM Brett Veach to be tempted to jump up to get them.

Here another view of prospects falling from DrafTek:

The prospects outlined in red — Montez Sweat, Clelin Ferrell, Greedy Williams, Devin Bush, Christian Wilkins — all are players Brett Veach would likely be interested in. On one hand, it appears that enough other prospects may be going before the Chiefs select at #29 that they can wait for a great prospect to fall into their lap. However, if they have fallen in love with one of these young men, then a move up the board could be in order.

The above screen capture from DrafTek also shows the prospects in yellow (all except Devin Bush) who have fallen this past week with a red down arrow indicating they have been heading down the draft board and the number next to that shows how may places they have fallen in that one week span. The 11 spaces that Montez Sweat has fallen confirms his recent decent. We may not know which prospects the Chiefs brass have fallen in love with personally, but I’d muster a guess that if Clelin Ferrell is available in the 20s, Veach will leap at the opportunity.

The free fall of Montez Sweat is made more egregious by the ranking that Gill Brandt gives him, as his #5 best overall prospect. Brandt has enough excellent prospects ranked, at #29 or lower, to make me believe that Brett Veach could also stay put and not trade up… or even trade down to pick up more top-100 selections. Here are Brandt’s #29 through #40:

• 29. WR Parris Campbell
• 30. CB Byron Murphy
• 31. OL Connor McGovern
• 32. DT Jeffrey Simmons
• 33. WR AJ Brown
• 34. EDGE LJ Collier
• 35. TE Irv Smith
• 36. OT Kaleb McGary
• 37. OC Erik McCoy
• 38. CB Rock Ya-Sin
• 39. S Johnathan Abram
• 40. DT Jerry Tillery

Why is it important to pay attention to Gill Brandt’s board? From an article at ArrowheadPride called, “What Gil Brandt’s draft board tells us about what the Chiefs could do” comes this insight:

“When we look back at the 160 first-round picks from 2014 – 2018, we find that Brandt only missed on 31 of them, giving him an 81% success rate. Of the 31 he missed, 19 were selected between picks 25 and 32 — the last quarter of the round. In the top 15 picks, Brandt is incredibly accurate. 75% of the time, a player is selected within five picks of his board. Even if we change the criteria to within two picks, his accuracy is still an impressive 45%.”

So, you may be thinking that this doesn’t mean much because Brandt has missed the most on picks 25-32. However, he has gotten more right than any other prognosticator that I have ever read or listened to so we may want to pay better attention. Not only that but if you look at his success rate on those picks he was still right 21 out of 40 times, a 50%+ rate (within 5 picks accuracy).

Even if Montez Sweat does fall out of the first round, I think some team will be getting a great value whenever he is picked and you can be sure that he’ll have a huge chip on his shoulder, and for quite a long while. However, if that means another great talent won’t be pushed down to the Chiefs, it just makes things tougher for Brett Veach next Thursday.

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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