Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt weighs in on first-round trade, other NFL draft topics

Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said he had no qualm with general manager John Dorsey’s decision Thursday to trade out of the first round in the 2016 NFL Draft.

“It was a really smart move on his part,” Hunt said Friday when he met with reporters a half-hour before the second round got underway. “It was something that he had mentioned to me earlier in the week. He felt, to some degree, that the player that you would get with the 28th pick would be largely similar to the player that you could get at the top of the second round.

“Being able to add some picks was very appealing to him and, ultimately, he found a partner that was willing to do a trade that he thought made sense.”

Dorsey traded the Chiefs’ first-round pick, No. 28 overall, and a seventh-round pick (No. 249) to San Francisco for the 49ers’ second-round (No. 37), fourth-round (No. 105) and sixth-round (No. 178) picks. San Francisco used the Chiefs’ natural first-round pick Thursday to select Stanford guard Josh Garnett, while the Chiefs used the additional second-round pick Friday to select Mississippi State defensive tackle Chris Jones.

The Chiefs were docked their third-round pick and a sixth-round pick in 2017 for prematurely contacting wide receiver Jeremy Maclin before free agency opened last season, but Hunt denied that the tampering penalty impacted the decision to trade down.

“I don’t really think the two are linked together at all,” Hunt said. “As I mentioned, having more picks is always better. I think John would have made exactly the same decision he made yesterday, independent of the tampering penalty. The two don’t really go together.”

The trade meant that the Chiefs didn’t select any players on the first day of the draft.

“There were opportunities to move up; there were opportunities to move down,” Hunt said. “We were making calls. Other teams were calling us. It was a very hectic period in the two or three picks leading up to ours.”

Hunt wouldn’t say if Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch, who AFC West rival Denver moved up to get at No. 26 overall, was among the Chiefs’ targets if Dorsey had succeeded in trading up.

“I’m not going to go into specifics on who we were looking at, either up or down, as it relates to that,” Hunt said. “There were some players that John was interested in higher in the first round and, ultimately, those trades didn’t work out and we ended up going down. I’m happy with that decision.”

Another decision he’d be happy with — bringing a future NFL Draft to Kansas City.

“Chicago has shown everybody that you can have the draft somewhere other than New York City and it can be very successful,” Hunt said. “Clearly, I’m personally interested and the organization is interested and I think the Kansas City community is interested in trying to bring the draft here. When we get that chance, we will put our best foot forward.”

He continued, “It’s a question of coming up with the right venue. … I think we need to put some thought into what the best venue in Kansas City would be to do it, but I really don’t see anything that would preclude us.”

Despite lobbying the NFL “pretty hard” for more September/October games each season, Hunt said he’s fine with the 2016 schedule and happy that the Chiefs landed three primetime games.

The Chiefs play twice on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” — Oct. 2 at Pittsburgh and Christmas night vs. Denver — and also have a Thursday night game Dec. 8 vs. Oakland on NBC.

“I like having as many primetime games as we can have,” Hunt said. “I’m glad that we’re going to be on Sunday Night Football a couple of times this year. Obviously, I’m delighted to have a Thursday night game with the Raiders, but, quite frankly, we feel like we deserve more primetime games. I’m disappointed that we don’t have a Monday night game.”

As for the Laremy Tunsil saga, which dominated headlines from Thursday’s first round, Hunt said it was never an issue for the Chiefs.

“I don’t think we felt that he was going to fall all the way to 28, so it wasn’t really something that we had to consider,” Hunt said.

Tunsil, a Mississippi junior left tackle, tumbled to Miami at No. 13 after video was posted on social media that appeared to show him smoking marijuana and accusations that he received impermissible benefits were posted on his Instagram account, which he said was hacked.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 7:15 PM with the headline "Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt weighs in on first-round trade, other NFL draft topics."