Chiefs Visual Depth Chart: The Defensive Line

Chiefs Visual Depth Chart: The Defensive Line – at times it’s beneficial to take a look at the players the Kansas City Chiefs employ, at a certain position… visually… to get a better feel for what the needs are. Here’s a look at the defensive line.

The players listed in yellow — and greyscale — are free agents and have no contract in 2020… yet. However, with the Free Agent period coming up next month, you can expect that to change quickly. My understanding is that the Chiefs can negotiate with their own players prior to that time. The first team is listed at the top, the second team in the next row, and the third team at the bottom.

While I’ve been of the opinion that Chris Jones will not be wearing a Chiefs uniform in 2020, Lyle Graversen may have the best alternative yet. He said, in his piece on Monday called, “The Kansas City Chiefs Should Be Free Agent Bargain Hunters” that:

“I feel very confident that the Chiefs will use the franchise tag this season on Chris Jones to prevent him from hitting the open market.”

At Left Defensive Tackle, there’s just no way that Khalen Saunders is ready to replace Chris Jones… and amy never be. Jones has a 6 inch height advantage over Saunders and he uses his height to do an arm-over move to the QB, a move Saunders will likely never be able to perform. Jones also bats a lot of balls down because of his height as well.

The Chiefs will need to be ready to fork over approximately $16,272,000 (the projected amount of a DT Franchise Tag from NFL Trade Rumors) if they intend to go that route. CJ could be a generational talent and letting him walk or trading him would be a mistake… and if Veach can find a way to keep him, he should. Keeping Chris Jones would be a tremendous lift to the Chiefs pass rush because without him it would be Frank Clark and a lot of Spag’s bag of magic, like: stunts and blitzes and magic trickzes. 

While the Chiefs began the year with Alex Okafor lined up as the starting Left Defensive End, after his injury, it was Tanoh Kpassagnon and then Terrell Suggs who stepped in and stepped up bigtime.

At Right Defensive Tackles Derrick Nnadi has become a solid run stopper but it’s the addition of Mike Pennel that not only helped the D-line shut the run down when they wanted to… but he made Nnadi’s job a lot easier. Good news out of Gotham is that Pennel has said he wants to return to the Chiefs in 2020. I doubt that Xavier Williams will be re-signed because Veach has done a good job of lining up — the next man up — in the form of guys like, Devaroe Lawrence, Anthony Lanier II, and Braxton Hoyett. Anthony Lanier (not pictured) has spent time with Washington and the Chargers, is solidly built at 6-6, 285 lbs., and he’s not just a camp body. I can see him becoming a contributor along the defensive line.

Emmanuel Ogbah came to the Chiefs as the result of a trade for Safety Eric Murphy. In the early part of the 2019 season, when Frank Clark was playing with an injury, Emmanuel Ogbah was probably the Chiefs best defensive end. Lyle Gravesen thought so too.

“Emmanuel Ogbah was arguably the Chiefs best defensive lineman early in the season before getting injured.”

His salary in 2019 was $1,351,314  ($1.351M) so re-signing him should not cost a lot and you can only imagine he’s itching to get back started for a team who just won the Lombardi. If he can move past his torn pectoral muscle injury, he should be at the height of his career at 26 years old.

If the Chiefs can bring back their top 9 Defensive Linemen (Clark, Nnadi, Jones, Okafor, Ogbah, Pennel, Saunders, KPass and Speaks) pictured above, I’d be thrilled. If Terrell Suggs could be added as well, that would be the best of all worlds.

If you are Defensive Coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, you have to be concerned that 5 of your top 12 defensive linemen in 2019, are currently not available in 2020. In fact, he has likely put his order in to the Chiefs GM with the hope that Veach can re-sign the players he wants most.

Here’s a look at all the Chiefs current defensive line contracts as provided by sportract.com. This is my truncated version (to fit on the page):

If you think Brett Veach hasn’t already been busy this month signing players, take a look at the Chiefs Transactions:

Kansas City Chief Transactions

• • FEB 11 2020, Gehrig Dieter, WR, Signed a reserve/future contract
  • FEB 4 2020, Joe Fortson, TE, Signed a reserve/future contract 
  • FEB 4 2020, Braxton Hoyett, DT, Signed a reserve/future contract
  • FEB 4 2020, Nick Keizer, TE, Signed a reserve/future contract 
  • FEB 4 2020, Chris Lammons, CB, Signed, reserve/future contract

Out of all the positions groups, I’d say the DBs and the DL have shown the most improvement from 2018 to 2019 with the DL being the Biggest winner. A lot of that improvement was not only due to Frank Clark, but the mid-season additions of Mike Pennel and Terrell Suggs. For now, neither has a deal with the Chiefs. Let’s hope that changes over the next month.

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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