Kansas City had two first-round picks in the 2022 NFL Draft and they chose two defensive players who can help them win now.
The Kansas City Chiefs have had one of the most fascinating offseasons of recent memory, they lost key players on the offense and defense to free agency and then traded away Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins. The Chiefs had a lot of needs coming into the draft, and they went and got two of the needs in big ways.
Trent McDuffie – CB – Washington
McDuffie was not supposed to be at the 21st spot in the draft, he wasn’t supposed to be at the 16th spot either, but he fell past the Steelers at 20 and the Chiefs decided to move up to get their corner. The Chiefs traded a third and fourth-round pick to get their man from the Patriots, and the Chiefs fixed the defensive secondary with one pick.
One of the biggest questions the Chiefs had to answer was the defensive secondary, with the loss of Chavarius Ward and Tyrann Mathieu, a lot of Chiefs fans people wondered what the plan was going to be this year in the defensive backfield. The Chiefs signed Justin Reid and Deon Bush to fill the roles of Tyrann Mathieu and Daniel Sorenson and now they went out and got the corner they were missing opposite of L’Jarius Sneed.
McDuffie isn’t a big body corner or the most physical guy, but he has unbelievable ball skills as a corner, the man loves to find the ball and either punch it out or pick it off. McDuffie is like a lot of those Washington corners like Marcus Peters or Desmond Trufant who are ballhawks in the secondary. Also, McDuffie brings versatility to the position that the Chiefs would love to use, he can play in the three safety looks that Spags likes to run as a nickel or as the corner on the outside against a speedy wideout.
This is one of the best picks the Chiefs could have made at their position late in the draft and it helps to make the Chiefs’ secondary solid once again.
George Karlaftis – EDGE – Purdue
If you have been following our coverage since the end of the 2021-22 season, you know that the Chiefs have needed an edge rusher for some time. They didn’t pull a trade to get an established vet or a young stud, instead Chiefs Kingdom waited on pins and needles to get a guy in the draft and the Chiefs got George Karlaftis out of Purdue University.
Karlaftis is the other guy who wasn’t supposed to be around this late in the draft but wound up being available at the 30th pick for the Chiefs. Karlaftis is sort of a weird edge rusher in that he didn’t get a whole lot of sacks, but was able to get a lot of Quarterback pressures while at Purdue, he’s a younger version of Melvin Ingram. He’s a classic Spagnuolo defensive end, he’s a stout run defender with the ability to get the quarterback flustered.
Karlaftis isn’t the guy I would have chosen, but he was the best edge rusher available and he’s only 21 years old. He is one of the players who seems like he can develop as a great player next to Chris Jones and opposite of Frank Clark because he will be getting more single coverage as a pass rusher. Kalraftis will have a bit of a learning curve, but he literally just turned 21 three weeks ago and he seems to be a guy who wants to get better, he can contribute to the Chiefs who needed more depth at pass rusher.
