Pivot point; The 2025 Chiefs draft will be their most important in years
Looking at KC's recent draft history and discussing why this year's draft is so crucial for their continued contention.
Don’t let the last game of the season fool you. The Kansas City Chiefs will almost certainly be Super Bowl contenders in 2025.
Make no mistake, there will be plenty of voices in the coming months (depending on how the offseason goes… NFL media loves a good offseason champion) saying things to the contrary. This is especially true if Travis Kelce, one of the genuine foundational pieces of the Chiefs’ dynasty, retires (frankly, even if he doesn’t the offense will need to change around him, but that’s a conversation for another day). Everyone loves a good narrative, and there’s nothing like “the end of a dynasty” to draw views/clicks/conversation.
But the reality is that there’s a reason Kansas City was the #1 seed in the AFC and made it to the Super Bowl last year. And not to over-simplify, but the primary reason for that is “they have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, and other teams don’t.” That’s not looking to change in 2025, and so the opportunity to contend is always there. Additionally, for as ugly as their last performance of the season was, the Chiefs’ roster has enough pieces to compete.
That said, the Chiefs are at something of a “pivot point” in the Mahomes era. This is the fourth time they’ve been in a place like this, despite the relatively short time Mahomes has been KC’s quarterback. That’s how fast things change in the NFL.
The first pivot point came following the 2018 AFC Championship loss. While that was only Mahomes’ first season starting, it was clear that the defensive side of the ball needed a drastic turnover (not just replacing Bob Sutton with Steve Spagnuolo at defensive coordinator, but replacing multiple defenders). The overall pivot was so successful that they were able to make a sizeable improvement on defense while maintaining their torrid pace on offense, and they won the Super Bowl the following year.
The next pivot point came just two years later, after the 2020 season (again, life comes at you fast in the NFL). 2020 was defined as the “run it back” attempt with basically an identical roster to 2019, and they unfortunately fell short in the now-infamous “the entire offensive line is hurt” Super Bowl loss to the Bucs. With their tackles both injured in ways that seemed long-term and the interior OL extremely problematic, Brett Veach had to rebuild the entire offensive line. It’s worth noting that he utilized not only the draft (Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith), but also utilized traditional free agency (paying Joe Thuney a ton of money after narrowly missing on Trent Williams) as well as a trade (acquiring Orlando Brown at LT).
The third pivot? Well, you all know what that was. Following a 2021 season in which they again fell short (this time in the AFC Championship game) the Chiefs wisely saw that their defense needed some upgrades and youth. So they traded away superstar WR Tyreek Hill (who was coming due for an absolutely massive payday) and utilized the capital acquired there to have one of the best drafts in KC history (we’ll come back to that shortly). They also used the money saved to bring in Justin Reid at safety (an underrated piece of the defense over the last three seasons).
In all three “pivot” moments, Veach and the Chiefs have been able to reset well with the available resources and tools. Specifically, in the post-2020 and post-2021 pivot points, they’ve utilized the draft very well in order to bring the team a level up where it needed to be (and/or avoid a letdown).
And now, just a few years down the line, the Chiefs find themselves in the same spot. And given the current makeup of the roster, from strengths to weaknesses to where current “core” players are at in their contracts, I think there’s an argument to be made that the 2025 draft is the most important Chiefs draft since 2022.
I want to make that argument today. To do so, we need to take a trip down memory lane and examine the Chiefs’ drafts from 2021 on to look at how the two “pivot drafts” (2021 and 2022) were able to provide pieces (around the foundational pieces of Mahomes, Kelce, and Chris Jones) that led to Kansas City managing to go from one-time Super Bowl winner to a dynasty. After that, I want to look at the last 2 years’ drafts, how they’ve also contributed (or not) to the dynasty and why the roster is in a situation in which another big draft is needed to keep the wheels turning.
But first… what in the world IS a good draft?