The Kansas City Chiefs have built the best organization in the NFL in the 2020s – if not the best in major North American sports – mostly through the draft, rarely splashing out big money to free agents from other teams.
BetMiissouri.com, where we’re tracking developments leading to the launch of Missouri sports betting, used Pro-Football-Reference.com to list the top players that the Kansas City Chiefs have selected after the first round of the NFL Draft since 2000. We searched all players by PFR’s weighted Approximate Value (wAV) metric and found these top 10 players that K.C. chose from Rounds 2-7 over the past 25 years.
Pos., Player | Year, Pick No. | Career wAV* |
DE Jared Allen | 2004, No. 126 | 101 |
WR Tyreek Hill | 2016, No. 165 | 97 |
TE Travis Kelce | 2013, No. 63 | 90 |
DT Chris Jones | 2016, No. 37 | 88 |
LB Justin Houston | 2011, No. 70 | 74 |
RB Jamaal Charles | 2008, No. 73 | 66 |
C Rodney Hudson | 2011, No. 55 | 61 |
G Mitch Morse | 2015, No. 49 | 55 |
DB Brandon Carr | 2008, No. 140 | 53 |
RB Kareem Hunt | 2017, No. 86 | 49 |
*The career weighted Approximate value is for their entire career, which could include seasons played with other teams.
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The most obvious Chiefs draft choice that many regard as a “steal” in recent years is quarterback Patrick Mahomes, taken No. 10 overall in the 2017 NFL Draft. Mahomes has won three Super Bowls, led the Chiefs to two others and earned two Associated Press Most Valuable Player awards in a career destined to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But a team must surround a franchise quarterback with the right talent. And Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl odds have been boosted in recent years by many players selected after the first round.
Among current players, nobody exemplifies that more than tight end Travis Kelce. The 12-year veteran had relatively modest numbers in college (59 career receptions for 875 yards and 10 touchdowns in 35 games at Cincinnati) but Kansas City saw enough in Kelce to select him No. 63 overall in the 2013 NFL Draft. Since then, he and Mahomes have forged one of the most lethal passing combinations in league history, with Kelce registering 697 receptions for 8,251 yards and 55 touchdowns just since Mahomes took over as KC’s starting quarterback in 2018.
In all, Kelce has 1,004 career catches for 12,151 yards and 77 TDs, all franchise records, and a career weighted Approximate Value of 90, according to Pro Football Reference data.
The top two players on our list had very productive tenures with the Chiefs before departing for other teams. Defensive end Jared Allen (101 wAV) played four years in Kansas City before joining the Minnesota Vikings and wound up in Canton as a Pro Football HOF inductee. Wide receiver Tyreek Hill (97 wAV) made the Pro Bowl in all six seasons that he played for the Chiefs before he joined the Miami Dolphins.
Keep track of Kansas City Chiefs betting trends when the market goes live here at BetMissouri.com. In neighboring Kansas as of April 28, the Chiefs have +750 odds to win Super Bowl 60. That’s tied for third on the operator’s board with the Buffalo Bills, behind only the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles (+650) and the Baltimore Ravens (+700).
USA Today photo by Mark J. Rebilas
Author
Jim Tomlin is a contributing editor for BetMissouri.com. Jim brings 30-plus years of experience writing and editing stories about sports, gambling and the intersection of those two industries. He has worked at the Tampa Bay Times, FanRag, Saturday Down South and Saturday Tradition and now lends his expertise to BetMissouri.com, among other sites.
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