As a lead-up to the 2024 NFL draft, we’ve broken down the current depth chart of every NFL team and identified the biggest draft and team needs for the Kansas City Chiefs.
You can find additional team-by-team draft needs articles and other draft content on our 2024 NFL Draft Hub.
Kansas City Chiefs Needs: Top Positions of Need in 2024
- Offensive Tackle
- Wide Receiver
- Defensive Line
What Picks Do the Kansas City Chiefs Have in 2024?
The Kansas City Chiefs have 7 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft, including:
- Round 1 (32)
- Round 2 (64)
- Round 3 (95)
- Round 4 (131)
- Round 5 (159)
- Round 5 (173)
- Round 7 (221)
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This preview shares insights into players, coaches, teams, and philosophies with one goal in mind: to prepare you for the 2024 NFL season by delivering the smartest information in the fastest, most direct way possible.
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Kansas City Chiefs Draft Capital Stats
Our Sharp Draft Value Rank is a valuation of draft capital based on a combination of average performance delivered and average dollars earned on second contracts.
This is based on two public models: performance delivered based on draft slot (the AV model created by Chase Stuart) and contractual earnings in non-rookie deals based upon draft slot (the OTC model created by Brad Spielberger and Jason Fitzgerald).
- Chiefs Sharp Draft Value Rank: 28 of 32 teams
- Chiefs AV Model Draft Value Rank: 28 of 32 teams
- Chiefs OTC Model Draft Value Rank: 27 of 32 teams
Kansas City Chiefs Draft Value vs. Other Teams:
The Chiefs’ draft value is 22% lower than the league average of all 32 teams. 27 other teams have more draft value entering the 2024 NFL Draft.
Kansas City Chiefs Draft Prediction:
Brendan Donahue has the Chiefs selecting Ladd McConkey (WR, Georgia) with the 32nd overall pick in his most recent 2024 NFL Mock Draft.
Mock draft expert Ryan McCrystal believes the Chiefs could target an offensive lineman like Kingsley Suamataia (OL, BYU) with their top pick at No. 32 overall in the first round.
Kansas City Chiefs Strength of Schedule, 2024
The Kansas City Chiefs have the 12th-easiest NFL strength of schedule for the 2024 NFL season.
Kansas City Chiefs Offense: Depth Chart, Analysis & Draft Needs
Rich Hribar breaks down the offensive depth chart by position for the Kansas City Chiefs, identifying areas where the team could improve in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft.
Quarterback Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Patrick Mahomes
- Carson Wentz
- Ian Book
- Chris Oladokun
Patrick Mahomes had an “off year” by his career standards.
Mahomes threw a career-high 14 interceptions while posting career-lows in touchdown rate (4.5%), yards per pass attempt (7.0 Y/A), yards per completion (10.4), and passing yards per game (261.4).
He closed the season 10th in EPA per dropback (0.07) and 10th in success rate (45.2%).
On throws 10 yards or further downfield, Mahomes was 28th in the NFL in rating (65.1).
He completed just 45.8% of those passes with two touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Despite giving the league a chance last season compared to his prior career output, that still did not stop the Chiefs from making their fourth Super Bowl appearance over the past five seasons and winning their third championship over that span.
The Chiefs have made six consecutive AFC Title games since turning to Mahomes as their starting quarterback.
Mahomes is signed through the 2031 season, but after this season the Chiefs will have to work around a major jump in Mahomes’s current contract.
He will carry a $37.0 million cap hit in 2024, but then that spikes up to $66.3 million in 2025, $68.7 million in 2026, and $64.8 million in 2027.
We will see how the roster is impacted by those lofty cap hits or if the team and Mahomes come to another arrangement that moves money around.
Behind Mahomes, the Chiefs added Carson Wentz as an experienced option for a team in a dynasty arc.
Running Back Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Isiah Pacheco
- Clyde Edwards-Helaire
- La’Mical Perine
- Keaontay Ingram
- Deneric Prince
- Hassan Hall
- Louis Rees-Zammit
The Kansas City run game was below the fold last season.
Their running backs combined to rank:
- 17th in yards per carry (4.1 YPC)
- 25th in success rate (33.8%)
- 23rd in the rate of runs to gain 10 or more yards (8.2%)
- 20th in yards after contact per rush (2.74)
Their backs did come in ninth in rate of runs to result in a first down or touchdown (23.6%).
Building on the way he finished his rookie season in 2022, Isiah Pacheco turned 249 touches into 1,179 yards and nine touchdowns over 14 games in his second season.
Pacheco has been a mixed bag as a runner in the NFL, but the top-down results are there.
Already getting over 2,000 total yards and 14 touchdowns through two seasons of a seventh-round pick is a net win, regardless of how he got there.
In 2023, Pacheco ranked 25th among running backs in success rate as a runner (37.1%) and 24th in explosive run rate (9.8%).
Pacheco is on the books for peanuts the next two seasons tied into his late-round draft capital, set to make $1.0 million in 2024 and $1.1 million in 2025.
The Chiefs do not have to force the issue, but we should still look for them to add something here.
The remaining backs on the roster are largely nondescript, and all are only under contract for this upcoming season.
Kansas City has already used a few of their pre-draft visits on Jonathon Brooks and Cody Shrader.
They have also used a visit on Carson Steele, who fits an archetype that typically moves to fullback or remains a power back only.
The Chiefs have not used a primary fullback since 2022, but Andy Reid has utilized one in all of his prior offenses while the Chiefs have had some of their worst success running the ball the past two seasons.
Wide Receiver Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Rashee Rice
- Marquise Brown
- Skyy Moore
- Kadarius Toney
- Anthony Miller
- Shi Smith
- Montrell Washington
- Cornell Powell
- Justyn Ross
- Nikko Remigio
- Jacob Copeland
- Izaiah Gathings
This once again was a soft spot for the offense.
Kansas City targeted their wide receivers 53.3% of the time, which was 29th in the league.
Their wideouts combined to average 11.8 yards per catch (23rd) with 13 touchdowns (20th).
The group also was credited with 20 drops, which was 29th in the league.
Things were not all bad, however.
After a draft drought hitting on wide receivers, Rashee Rice found a consistent role later into his rookie season and never looked back.
Through 10 games, Rice was the best wideout on the team per opportunity but had yet to lock in consistent snaps.
He was averaging a team-high 2.21 yards per route run over that stretch but had only run a route on 44.5% of the team dropbacks and received 12.6% of the team targets.
Over the final 10 games, Rice jumped up to 2.59 yards per route run in a larger role. He ran a route on 69.4% of the team dropbacks with a 23.9% share of the team targets to close the year.
He had at least 19.0% of the team targets in each of the final 10 games of the season with over 25.0% of the targets in seven of those 10 games.
By the end of the season, Rice caught 79 passes for 938 yards and seven touchdowns in the regular season, adding another 26 catches for 262 yards and a touchdown in the postseason.
Rice found his niche producing after the catch.
70.8% of his receiving yards came after the catch, the highest rate among qualifying wide receivers.
Rice only averaged 4.6 air yards per target, ahead of only Parris Campbell and Kadarius Toney.
83.7% of his targets as a rookie were fewer than 10 yards downfield, which led the league.
While that could be viewed as something unstable moving forward. Rice caught a ton of screens in college. The Chiefs found where Rice succeeded and used him in that capacity to maximum effectiveness.
There is room for Rice’s route tree and role to expand.
He does face legal trouble following a hit and run that will likely result in “at least a multi-game suspension” according to Adam Schefter.
It remains to be seen how the legal issues will play out and when that suspension will happen, but the situation adds urgency to the Chiefs finding another receiver.
The Chiefs released Marquez Valdes-Scantling this offseason but also went out and added Marquise Brown on a one-year deal.
Brown did not live up to the compensation he was traded for in Arizona, posting 709 and 574 receiving yards over 24 games the past two seasons.
He is coming off a career-low 41.0 receiving yards per game, and his 3.6 receptions per game were his fewest since 2020.
Brown did still provide fleeting moments of success in Arizona, and the drop-off in production there was not completely his doing.
21.6% of Brown’s targets in Arizona were deemed inaccurate per TruMedia. No wide receiver with as many overall targets over that span has a higher inaccurate target rate.
Over his two seasons in Arizona, Brown played with six different quarterbacks. None of them were the caliber of Patrick Mahomes.
Even if Brown cannot fully resurrect his early career success and pedigree, his presence should aid Mahomes.
Since entering the NFL, Brown has averaged 23.4 yards per touchdown catch.
The only players with more receiving touchdowns and a higher average over that span are Ja’Marr Chase (32.3), Tyreek Hill (28.4), and A.J. Brown (27.7).
Since Hill left Kansas City, the Chiefs have had a hole in their offense creating splash-play touchdowns.
Over the past two seasons, Mahomes averaged 9.5 yards per touchdown pass in 2023 (ahead of Bryce Young) and 12.2 yards in 2022 (29th in the league).
Mahomes has 10 passing touchdowns from outside of the red zone the past two seasons (16th in the league) after having 56 of those scores in 2018-2021, the most in the league.
Brown is only under contract for one season, so we should not consider him a fix for this part of the roster but rather a band-aid.
They have a ton of warm bodies filling out their depth chart, but Rice is still the only potential long-term contributor that the Chiefs have signed for multiple seasons.
Rice, Skyy Moore, and Nikko Remigio are their only wide receivers signed beyond 2024, and I am not even sure the last name is a real player.
Tight End Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Travis Kelce
- Noah Gray
- Irv Smith
- Gerrit Prince
At age 34, Travis Kelce finally started to show wear, which played into why Patrick Mahomes had a dip in output himself.
After a superb run of staying healthy, Kelce started the season dealing with a knee injury and then suffered a low-ankle sprain in Week 5.
He battled through 15 regular season games, but had career lows in yards per catch (10.6) and yards per target (8.1).
He had never averaged fewer than 12.0 yards per catch in any season of his career.
His 65.6 receiving yards per game were his fewest in a season since 2015.
He was only on the field for 71.7% of the team dropbacks, his lowest rate since his first season on the field in 2014.
Kelce played 77% of the team snaps in total. His overall snap rate has now dropped from the season prior in five consecutive seasons.
But once we got into the postseason, Kelce turned up the dial.
In four playoff games, he caught 32 passes for 355 yards and three touchdowns, posting games of 7-71-0, 5-75-2, 11-116-1, and 9-93-0.
He will turn 35 years old in October of this upcoming season with two years remaining on his existing contract.
The Chiefs still have Noah Gray in the final year of his contract while they added Irv Smith on a one-year deal.
Offensive Line Depth Chart, Chiefs:
LT: Wanya Morris, Chukwuebuka Godrick
LG: Joe Thuney, Mike Caliendo
C: Creed Humphrey
RG: Trey Smith
RT: Jawaan Taylor, Lucas Niang
The interior of this offensive remains a strength.
Creed Humphrey, Joe Thuney, and Trey Smith were the three players that allowed the lowest pressure rates on the line last season.
They also all played in all 17 regular-season games before Thuney was injured in the postseason.
Kansas City is set here from a talent perspective, but both Smith and Humphrey are in the final season of their rookie contracts.
Since neither was selected in the first round, they both are set to become unrestricted free agents after this season.
We have already highlighted how the contract for Patrick Mahomes makes a major spike in 2025, so the Chiefs are going to have to get creative if they are going to keep both of these guys long-term since they each should fetch solid paydays on the open market.
While the Chiefs could look to insulate themselves on the interior should they lose one or both of these guys after the season, offensive tackle is an immediate need.
The team signed Jawaan Taylor to a four-year contract last offseason.
Taylor led the NFL in penalties (24) and was 47th in pass-blocking grade among tackles per Pro Football Focus.
He also had the lowest run-blocking grade on the team, which was 82nd out of 85 tackles at PFF.
If you don’t like PFF grades, Taylor’s 6.9% pressure rate allowed was 54th among tackles.
Kansas City’s hands are sort of tied here with Taylor. They kind of have to hope he just has a better season.
Taylor has cap hits of $24.7 million over each of the next three seasons. The Chiefs do not even get any dead money cap savings on his contract until after the 2025 season.
While the Chiefs are going to ride or die with Taylor at right tackle, left tackle is wide open right now.
The team did not retain Donovan Smith, whose 8.9% pressure rate allowed was 77th among tackles last season.
Kansas City drafted Wanya Morris in the third round last season.
Morris made four starts, playing 339 snaps at left tackle.
It did not go well.
Morris allowed a team-high 10.8% pressure rate, which ranked 91st among tackles to play 100 or more snaps in pass protection last season.
As a run blocker, he was 80th out of 85 tackles per PFF.
The Chiefs are fully aware of these issues.
They have used more pre-draft visits on offensive tackles than any other position so far.
Kansas City Chiefs Defense: Depth Chart, Analysis & Draft Needs
Raymond Summerlin breaks down the defensive depth chart by position for the Kansas City Chiefs, identifying areas where the team could improve in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft.
Defensive Line Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Chris Jones
- Derrick Nnadi
- Mike Pennel
- Tershawn Wharton
- Isaiah Buggs
- Matt Dickerson
- Neil Farrell
The Chiefs allowed 4.6 yards per running back carry (28th) and finished 22nd in yards before contact allowed per RB run last season.
Kansas City brought back all three free agents from this unit including Chris Jones on a five-year deal for nearly $160 million.
Jones earned that contract with his second All-Pro nod in a row and now has 26 sacks over the last two seasons.
He ranked second behind the now-retired Aaron Donald in ESPN’s pass rush win rate metric among defensive tackles last season.
So, anyway, he is pretty good.
There are some questions for the rest of the unit.
Both Derrick Nnadi and Tershawn Wharton are back on one-year deals, but neither really shined last season.
Mike Pennel is also back on a one-year deal. He appeared in just three regular season games last season but was active for the entire playoff run.
The primary depth behind Jones is all out of contract after this season, and the Chiefs did not get great play from that group last year, anyway.
This could be a spot where they add someone.
EDGE Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- George Karlaftis
- Mike Danna
- Charles Omenihu
- Felix Anudike-Uzomah
- Malik Herring
- BJ Thompson
- Jordan Smith
- Truman Jones
The Chiefs finished 9th in pressure rate and logged 57 sacks in 2023, the second-most in the league.
A first-round pick in 2022, George Karlaftis has had a strong start to his career including tying for the team lead with 10.5 sacks last season.
He now has 16.5 sacks through his first two years.
Karlaftis’ 14.8% pressure rate last season ranked 32nd among eligible pass rushers.
Mike Danna is back on a three-year, $24 million contract.
He played nearly as many snaps as Karlaftis but finished with 6.5 sacks and a lackluster 9.3% pressure rate.
Charles Omenihu only appeared in 11 games last season, but he was able to get 7 sacks with a 12.2% pressure rate.
Unfortunately, he suffered an ACL tear in the AFC Championship Game that almost certainly will force him to miss the start of the season.
A first-round pick last year, Felix Anudike–Uzomah struggled to earn snaps as a rookie, finishing with just 0.5 sacks and a 7.5% pressure rate.
This group would look pretty good if Omenihu was 100%, but as of now, they will need Anudike-Uzomah to step up.
Omenihu is also headed into a contract year.
That could mean the Chiefs look to add more here in the draft.
Linebacker Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Drue Tranquill
- Nick Bolton
- Leo Chenal
- Jack Cochrane
- Cam Jones
- Cole Christiansen
Willie Gay left in free agency, but Drue Tranquill is back on a three-year deal.
Tranquill showed well in the passing game last season, finishing with 6.5 yards per target allowed and 4.5 sacks.
That yards per target number was 21st among qualifying linebackers.
A 2022 third-round pick, Leo Chenal finished one spot ahead of Tranquill in those rankings, had 3 sacks of his own, and led the team with 10 run stuffs despite playing as a part-time player most of the season.
Nick Bolton only played eight games in the regular season, but he was back in a nearly every-down role in the playoffs.
Bolton is heading into the final year of his rookie deal, adding some long-term contract questions here.
Still, this group appears to be in pretty good shape, especially with Chenal making his case for a bigger role.
Cornerback Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Trent McDuffie
- Joshua Williams
- Jaylen Watson
- Nazeeh Johnson
- Ekow Boye-Doe
- Nic Jones
- Kelvin Joseph
- Keith Taylor
The Chiefs allowed 6.0 yards per pass attempt (3rd) and finished 4th in EPA per dropback.
L’Jarius Sneed was tagged and then traded, breaking up one of the best corner groups in the league last season.
Trent McDuffie is back after earning an All-Pro nod in just his second season.
In addition to his coverage skills, McDuffie forced 5 fumbles and finished with 3 sacks last season.
Neither Joshua Williams nor Jaylen Watson played full-time roles last season, but both showed well.
Williams finished first among all qualified corners in yards per target allowed, and PFF credited him with a forced incompletion on 27.6% of the targets against him.
Watson finished 15th among all qualified corners in yards per target allowed.
All three of those corners were drafted in 2022, meaning they have at least two more years left on their rookie contract with McDuffie eligible for a fifth-year option.
Even with losing Sneed, the Chiefs might still have three starting-quality corners on the roster.
The depth behind them is unproven, though, which might necessitate an addition.
Safety Depth Chart, Chiefs:
- Justin Reid
- Bryan Cook
- Chamarri Conner
- Deon Bush
- Tyree Gillespie
- Trey Dean
Mike Edwards is gone from this group, but the other three main contributors are back.
Justin Reid is not coming off his best season, but he allowed a solid 6.7 yards per target and contributed 3 sacks as a pass rusher.
A second-round pick in 2022, Bryan Cook stepped into a bigger role in his second season before an injury forced him to miss the end of the year.
A fourth-round pick last year, Chamarri Conner saw his playing time expand after Cook went down and made his case for more work moving forward.
Conner allowed 6.5 yards per target in coverage last season, 32nd among qualifying safeties.
Brought back on a one-year deal, Deon Bush is more of a special teams asset at this point, but he also offers some veteran depth.
Reid entering his contract year does raise some long-term contractual concerns, but this is a pretty solid unit.
Pre Order the Best Analytical 2024 Football Preview
Don’t miss out on Warren Sharp’s 500+ page preview of the 2024 NFL season.
The preview is unlike anything you have ever seen, featuring stunning visualizations built with the reader in mind.
This preview shares insights into players, coaches, teams, and philosophies with one goal in mind: to prepare you for the 2024 NFL season by delivering the smartest information in the fastest, most direct way possible.
