The marquees will light up for 32 teams on draft night — actually only 30, because two teams don’t have a first-round selection, the Rams and the Vikings — as each organization unveils their new multi-million dollar diamond, their number one pick. That’s why there is only one round of players chosen in the draft on the first day, because the league wants to slow it down, make a splash, and present the future of the league in grand fashion.
The one choice for the Kansas City Chiefs may be coming more and more into focus. Mike Mayock of NFL.com has released his Top Five for every position. Using this information and the graph I created on Team Needs in a post last Saturday called, “Will The Chiefs Find A Premium Player At A Premium Position With Their First Pick In The Draft?” we may be able to narrow the possibilities for the Chiefs first choice in the draft.
First, let’s take a look at Mike Mayock’s list of Top Five picks at each position. Here are the offensive prospects:
What I’ve done here is highlight the players who will most likely be available at pick #27 when the Chiefs select. The offensive tackles and Interior linemen could all be available because I don’t believe this is a particularly strong offensive line class. That may also be the reason the Chiefs steer clear of an OL in the first. Then again, teams crave good offensive linemen almost as much as they covet quarterbacks so you can expect a few of these guys to vanish before the Chiefs call out the name of their own Mr. Wonderful 2017.
There is no way to be perfectly sure of anything in this draft however, we are aware of the patterns and tendencies of the Chiefs GM so we may be able to do some projecting based on what we do know. Dorsey has taken an OT, an OLB, a CB and a DE. The only premium position player he hasn’t taken — aside from a QB — is a WR. Then again, the Chiefs traded away two 2nd round picks on a QB and two seconds comes fairly close in value to a first round pick, especially of you’re drafting at #23.
When highlighting the players who may be available in the draft, I had to decide who — with the highest degree of probability — would be gone when the Chiefs pick at #27. I felt fairly comfortable saying that 18 prospects would be gone for sure. However, there were several problem spots. Like quarterback. I feel comfortable saying that one of these QBs will be gone, but there just aren’t enough top shelf QB prospects in this draft to say that more than that will be gone… for sure. There’s also a need swing as my Needs Chart on Saturday revealed that up to 8 teams consider QB as their top need. So, there could be four, even five, QBs off the board, but I am sure there is no team that’s going to draft a QB in this draft and pin all their hopes on him starting as a rookie. By comparison, none of these QBs are as good as Paxton Lynch was when he came out last year and he was taken #26 overall. On the other hand, Lynch would probably be a top 15 pick in this draft.
My preference would probably be Patrick Mahomes II as a developmental QB. He is the most exciting of the top four but I wouldn’t want to see the Chiefs take him until somewhere in the second round.
[Please note, I’m excluding the “Special Exceptions” that Mayock has identified because none of them breaks through the #27 ranked threshold by the two major ranking services I like best, CBS Sports and DraftTek.]
The other major drawback in saying there will be 18 gone “for sure” by the time the Chiefs pick is… one of those top three corners could fall to K.C. So, there are variables and then there are more variables. In any event, this does seem to narrow the field a little. At the very least, Mike Mayock’s opinion is widely valued and should help drive the narrative for others as they begin to rank and value prospects.
You can play the “brackets game” with the rest of the prospects highlighted in yellow. For example, if you pit QB Deshaun Watson vs. OG Forrest Lamp — as potential Kansas City draft picks in the first round — you have a battle between someone who helps you down the road in Watson vs a player who might make your weakness into a strength this year. Depending upon your goal for the Chiefs to either, “win now” or secure a “quarterback of the future,” you can then make up your mind.
So, let’s hear it. Who’s your “bracket winner” and why do you think one certain prospect should be selected over another. Let’s narrow it down until we have a winner. Then we’ll let John Dorsey know the results and who the Chiefs should select in first-round. Right? Right!