Know your Chiefs draft crush part 1: Methodology and Adonai Mitchell

We kick off the 2024 know your draft crush series

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It’s that time of the year again. The time we peer into our crystal balls and gaze into the stars to ascertain the future. That’s right, it’s draft season! And that means it’s time to dust off our yearly “know your Chiefs draft crush” series.

For some analysts, draft season is all year long. My colleagues at

KC Sports Network

do some of the very best work in the business, with a Chiefs-centric draft guide that is available for pre-order now. Danny Kelly with The Ringer has a terrific big board that he works on every year. My good friend Ryan Tracy has one of the best athletic matrix-based draft guides you’ll ever find. And of course industry legend Dane Brugler releases “The Beast” draft guide based on his year-round scouting and legwork.

But for me, draft season starts now. As some of you know, I don’t follow college football. So while I start off far behind the 8-ball in terms of knowing the entire field, it allows me to look at potential prospects with new eyes, having none of the biases that a year (or more) of takes can create. I try to use those fresh eyes to talk about prospects the Chiefs might consider.

Similar to last year, Brett Veach and company seem most likely to draft a wide receiver early. While they drafted Rashee Rice in the 2nd round in 2023 and just signed Hollywood Brown, this position group remains very thin and needs an infusion of talent and depth (along with a long-term plan given Brown’s one-year deal). Veach will want to avoid the struggles of the 2023 season that affected the entire offense, as well as to plan for the future.

Fortunately, this is the draft to get help at the WR position. I asked Chiefs Twitter which receivers I should look at to try and figure out who would be a good fit in Kansas City. Today, we’ll go through the methodology I’ll be using in reviewing their film and talk about our first receiver, Adonai Mitchell (chosen by popular vote).

The consensus is that the top 3 receivers (Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze) will not be within reach, even in trade-up scenarios. So I won’t be looking at them (no need to make ourselves sad, after all). Based on the consensus of draft boards and your requests, here are the receivers I’ll try to get through (spoiler alert: Ain’t no way I’m getting through all of them):

Brian Thomas Jr, Ladd McConkey, Troy Franklin, Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell, Keon Coleman, Xavier Legette, Ja’Lynn Polk, Javon Baker, Malik Washington, Ricky Pearsall, Roman Wilson, Devontez Walker, Jalen McMillan, Malachi Corley, Jarami Thrash, and Jermaine Burton, Brenden Rice

The basic idea will be to look at each using the same general methodology. Then, once the draft is close, I’ll write a finale where I create tiers and “rank” the entire group. I did it in 2022 (I didn’t have time before the 2023 draft, sadly), and I had some hits and some misses, but I’m overall happy with the results.

About methodology… We’ll always start with a look at the player’s height/weight and college(s) attended. Then I’ll take a look at the all-22 of every snap in multiple games, writing about the same traits for each receiver. Those traits are as follows, with a kinda/sorta summary of the information we’re looking for in each trait:

-Speed / acceleration / agility- Pretty basic stuff. What sort of athlete is this guy? Is he fast, quick, or both? Can he change direction comfortably? Does he run away from defenders, and how long does it take from his breaks to do so?

-Release ability- How well does he start off his routes? Does he show the ability to deal with press coverage? Does he get a good jump at the line? Can he shake physicality or run/fight through it? How varied is he in getting off the line clean?

-Route running- How are his feet? What sort of tree was he asked to run? Does he waste steps? Can he maintain speed throughout breaks? How does he handle contact throughout the route? How comfortable is he finding holes and varying route speed against zone? Does he set up defenders well and smoothly?

-Hands / strength at catch point- Does he catch with his hands? Show the strength to win when he has to fight for it? Does he track the ball well in the air?

-Yards after catch / playmaking- Can he create yards? Does he shake the first tackler with consistency?

-Overall Takeaway- What’s the final verdict?

All right, let’s get moving and talk about Adonai Mitchell.

Adonai Mitchell - Texas (previously Georgia)

Relevant measurements - 6’2”, 205 pounds

Games reviewed - Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, TCU, Ohio State (2022), Oregon (2022)

(NOTE - Most of the video clips I’ll use will be to highlight positive traits, because they’re more fun to watch. But that doesn’t make the negative traits for a prospect any less real… it just means I like to show the fun things!)

-Speed / acceleration / agility-

It’s interesting, because based on combine numbers (remember, I don’t know anything about these guys before this process) you’d expect Mitchell to be a guy whose athleticism EXPLODES at you on film. But that’s not what I generally found.

To be clear, Mitchell doesn’t look like a bad athlete on film, or even an average one necessarily. I’d say he looks solid as an athlete with a few notable strengths. He’s got good acceleration (that shows up in his 10 and 20 yard splits) and he’s got quick feet. But the downfield speed looks OK, not high-level, and he generally relies more on nuance (both at the line and on his routes) to grab separation than an ability to run away from corners. His acceleration and agility show up more on film, where he’s able to grab quick chunks of separation at line or at the stem of routes.

While Mitchell is quick and accelerates well, his stop/start isn’t as high level as I’d expect from a guy with his numbers in the vertical and broad jump. Again, it’s fine, but it doesn’t jump off the screen. One thing that’s worth noting is that he did look noticeably quicker in 2023, which could be a sign that some of this is mental as he’s working on playing decisively (and given how nuanced he is, which we’ll get to, that could absolutely be the case).

-Release ability-

Mitchell repeatedly showed the ability to get clean releases, especially in 2023, against a variety of looks from opposing cornerbacks. He’s got the quick feet I referenced earlier and he understands how to stutter and set up corners at the line of scrimmage (or beyond) in order to get them wrong-footed for him to accelerate in the other direction. He’s also patient with his release and good at waiting for the right moment, not giving away his direction until he’s ready to move to get even with the CB.

There’s a lot to like about this route, but how he keeps himself clean and uses his feet well to get free inside (which forces the CB to drive inside… only to get shook loose outside) is my focus here. Mitchell closes the distance between himself and the CB and then shows a great stutter to get his opponent flat-footed. Mitchell then starts to drive inside and has created space. That CB’s need to recover from that space makes him vulnerable, and Mitchell then explodes outside (nice swipe from he hands to clear as well) and creates a mountain of space.

It’s worth noting the throw misses Mitchell here, and that’s a good thing to show people who wonder why he didn’t have higher production last season. His QB play was… uneven at times, and there were multiple plays where Mitchell created separation and either didn’t see the ball or the throw was off.

Mitchell shows comfort in either using a stutter step or dipping his shoulder to get around contact at the line of scrimmage, depending on what the route calls for. He looked more comfortable with his handfighting in 2023 than 2022, which further diversified his ability at the line of scrimmage.

Mitchell does seem to lack functional strength at times at the line (surprising at his size) and if corners are able to get good contact he can be slowed or may stumble coming into his route. And when he does, that can prove fatal for the route. I’m curious if he’d be able to throw on a little more strength in his lower body to be able to power through those moments. But overall, I’m comfortable with how he’s able to get good releases on the boundary and the slot with consistency.

-Route running-

Mitchell is a terrific route runner who wins at various levels consistently by setting up defenders and exploiting them. It’s his primary separation creator. He can do it shallow, intermediate, and deep. When defenses leave him 1x1 they’re taking a significant risk of him setting up the defender and then getting away from him right off the line. Watch his feet here vs the defender’s feet.

There’s no clue here for the CB (Kool-Aid McKinstry, if quality of competition matters to you) as to which direction Mitchell is going to break until it’s too late. The subtle hesitation and head fake outside (he puts his whole body into it) leaves him with yards of separation and an easy touchdown catch. It’s the hips and the head fake that give him the separation after it flatfoots the CB (as opposed to just getting into the defender’s body and breaking inside without a fake).

Mitchell’s ability to get a clean release serves him well here, but he can win at multiple points along the route. Some of his best work was when he was isolated against guys in the red zone.

You can see Mitchell dip his shoulder around contact here to get even with CB, and he does an exceptional job grabbing the space he needs once he’s in the end zone. He utilizes subtle head movement (watch him go outside-inside-outside) as well as using his hips to sell the movement despite the CB trying to “feel” the route by keeping his hands on Mitchell. That nuance to selling fakes and getting a defender’s momentum working the wrong way is underrated, and Mitchell does it better than most college receivers you’ll watch.

That level of smoothness and nuance to his route running is how Mitchell separates at all three levels, and he’s similarly adept at forcing CB’s into uncomfortable positions when they’re playing off man. He shows a knack for getting them to commit and finding the blind spot before making his move, even when CB’s are playing off man and in theory in a spot to sit and wait for him.

This is a really nice blind spot dance by Mitchell. Once he closes the distance on the CB enough to threaten down the field (leading the CB to open his hips inside while keeping outside leverage), he uses a series of quick fakes (sound familiar?) that don’t slow him down. He also goes out of his way to get himself right into the CB’s blind spot before making his cut, buying just a split second that leads to easy separation underneath.

Mitchell’s ability to set up moves is also how he generally separates deep. While he does have the ability at times to stack a CB, he doesn’t flat-out run away from them the way you might expect with his athletic profile. Instead, he uses his variety of ways he wins at the shallow and intermediate levels (winning at the stem of a route is so crucial) to get corners to bite, then accelerates away from them. His double moves are really solid.

This clip has made the rounds due to Mitchell showing high-level tracking of the ball over his shoulder, but that’s for the next section and I want to focus on the route here instead. It’s another example of Mitchell grabbing separation not through athleticism, but through nuance and winning at the stem. He had a solid day against Alabama’s CB’s and showed the ability to separate from them when matched up 1x1.

Mitchell’s nuance on routes extends to combinations (he showed the ability to be the “pick” guy multiple times) as well as running routes against zone. He shows the knowledge to vary his speed in and out of open spaces against zone coverage and seems comfortable finding and attacking the gaps. His tape against Oklahoma in particular was really encouraging in this area, and was a game where he (much to his visible frustration) found gaps in the zone multiple times but didn’t get the ball.

One area that Mitchell can work on is, similar to his releases, working against contact. He’s not a small receiver and while he showed improvement in this area in 2023, he can still get slowed down if defenders maintain contact with him. It’s one thing that can keep him from separating downfield routes without a fake built in, as defenders are able to keep a hand on him and stay in his hip pocket (as, again, he doesn’t show pure breakaway speed). The improvement from ‘22 to ‘23 is promising in this area (as is his size, a differentiating factor from, say, Skyy moore), but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Another potential issue for Mitchell is that he needs to show more “oomph” on plays where he doesn’t believe he’ll get the ball. I saw too many jogged-out routes when he was on the backside of plays. In an offense like the Chiefs, he’ll have to be more dialed-in (though I very much believe inconsistent QB play led to some of the feelings that led to this behavior).

Overall, Mitchell’s route running is what will likely move him to the first round, as NFL scouts will see the ability to create separation against man at all three levels as well as find spots against zone and executing route combinations. He’s smooth, quick, and has a number of ways to win that I think should translate to the next level.

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-Hands / strength at catch point-

The thing Mitchell is probably most known for (and perhaps why some believe he’s more of a contested catch merchant than a separator) is his hands and ability at the catch point.

The short story is that Mitchell is terrific here, able to make tough catches with consistency regardless of situation.

Mitchell has great body control and is able to find, track, and adjust to the ball while it’s in the air without losing much speed. He also shows very strong hands at the catch point and can snatch it out of the air (or dive back and snag it) even when he knows contact is coming.

I found this to be consistent at all levels of the field and in the majority of situations. Mitchell’s ability to see the ball in and adjust to it when it’s not where he’s expecting showed up whether it was on downfield routes (he had to make some extremely tough sideline catches) or simply a throw that came in hot in a spot that’s outside his body and against his momentum.

Mitchell additionally showed some ability to shield the ball with his body on situations where a defender is trying to drive on the catch point, and he seems to take pride in bringing in anything that comes near him. His body control also extend to his feet in toe-tapping situations, and he works the sideline or back of the end zone very well. All of this combines to create a situation where Mitchell can get away with less separation than other guys given his ability to adjust to and make a play on the ball.

-Yards after catch / playmaking-

Mitchell accelerates well once he has the ball and looks like he has good vision in space, but the games I watched didn’t provide me with a lot of insight to this area of his game (and I don’t make stuff up when I don’t know the answer). He didn’t break many tackles in the games I reviewed and the nature of his targets/catches weren’t such that it led to a lot of YAC opportunities. But he did show a few nice open field moves and looked comfortable navigating angles and blockers to buy the yardage that was there. It’ll be interesting to see more of this at the next level.

-Overall Takeaway-

I was surprised by Mitchell’s film overall. Like I said earlier, I didn’t see the dominant athlete that blew up the combine. What I saw was a smooth route runner who can win at every level of the field with nuance and does a nice job setting defenders up, as well as a guy who catches almost everything tossed his way.

Mitchell is a player I could see being more productive as a pro than college player given that his skillset translates really well into what the NFL is looking for. I don’t know that he’ll be an elite receiver, but I think he could be a very good one and could contribute quickly. His strength will be a key element to keep an eye on. If he develops a little bit more (as he did from ‘22 to ‘23) in terms of being able to shrug off contact more consistently and free his hands, he could make a jump as a player. In the meantime, there are a lot of uses for a guy who releases well and wins at the stem on routes at every level.

I can’t say with certainty (without reviewing everyone else, as you can see, the list is LONG) how I’d feel about the Chiefs trading up to grab Mitchell at this point. But I do know that if he’s there at 32 I’d be happy to see him added.

Next, we’ll pivot to one a lot of people have asked about in Ladd McConkey. Then we’ll start to move through Thomas, Franklin, Worthy, and the rest who are considered potential first rounders. And hopefully, by the end of things, you’ll know your draft crush.