If you go buy the books of what is considered to be the most valuable positions in the NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs did better than all 31 other teams, according to this lovely chart.
As long as Clark Hunt, Brett Veach and Andy Reid are working together in harmony, the Kansas City Chiefs are going to be awfully hard to beat most NFL Sundays.
It always starts with ownership. With great ownership, it is next to impossible to win consistently in any professional league. The Hunt Family is top-tier. While much is made about the innovative and lovable play-caller known as Big Red, Kansas City is a regular Super Bowl contender because of the man directing traffic in the war room. That would be their rockstar general manager Veach.
You want proof of how well the Chiefs drafted this spring? Look at this slightly misleading chart!
Kansas City ranks first in terms of using their highest percentage of draft capital on premium positions. Quarterback, wide receiver, offensive tackle, edge rusher, interior defensive lineman, cornerback and offensive line are deemed premium positions. For those who drafted running backs, tight ends and safeties, your team clearly has no earthly idea about what it is ever doing.
The Cleveland Browns and the Minnesota Vikings round out the top three with the Chiefs, while the bottom three teams in the league in this most important department are the Atlanta Falcons, the Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers. Although Atlanta is not very well-run, Buffalo and San Francisco sure are. Even if Minnesota is a well-respected operation, Cleveland is so not that.
Let’s look beyond the chart to see if the Chiefs really had the best NFL Draft known to mankind.
This super cool chart says the Kansas City Chiefs had the best NFL Draft in 2023
Admittedly, I’d be a fool to lie about there not being some correlation here. It does seem to feel that way, but again, drafts are about more than position groups. When it comes to the Chiefs, I think they had a fine draft, but nobody outside of offensive tackle Wanya Morris does much for me. Again, I trust Veach to do a better job of finding talent than most. He found Patrick Mahomes.
I would tend to agree that teams like the Arizona Cardinals, the Indianapolis Colts and the Philadelphia Eagles had great drafts. It is hard to deny what Philadelphia did. The Eagles killed it by drafting absolute … DAWGS! I I would also agree that teams like the Denver Broncos, the New York Jets and the New England Patriots had less-than-stellar drafts. It all comes down to the players…
When I look at the lowest ranked teams on this list, I see that Atlanta and Buffalo put an emphasis on non-premium positions in round one. Fate would have it, the Falcons took the best running back in the draft in Texas’ Bijan Robinson, while Buffalo did largely the same at the tight end position with Utah’s Dalton Kincaid. They didn’t have a need at either position, but these are studs!
San Francisco did not pick until the third round, so there is not a ton to get excited about either…
Overall, the three most important positions in football are the quarterback, the edge rusher and the left tackle in that order, and it’s not really debatable. I would agree that shutdown corners and No. 1 wide receivers probably come next, but you can only take what the draft gives you. While this feels like a strong corner class, the top-end of the wide receivers did leave a lot to be desired.
Ultimately, we have a whole offseason and 17-game season to see how these rookies shake out. The offensive rookie of the year could be a running back, for all we know. The same principle applies to a ball-hawking safety on the defensive side of the ball. While I would agree that some positions are significantly more valuable than others, you take the blue-chipper wherever he plays.
It is all about building a team, whether or not it includes exclusively premium-positioned players.
