The Chiefs’ first three draft picks — all defense — tell the same story
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs used their first three draft picks to select defensive players.
- Team pursued a defensive reset after finishing the season 6-11.
- Chiefs entered the draft with the most draft resources they have had in years.
The upshot of the worst season in a decade arrives over a three-day stretch in late April.
Like, now.
The Chiefs, on the heels of a 6-11 season, are operating with the most draft resources they have possessed in years, and they’ve used the opportunity for a reset to reset one thing specifically.
Their defense.
The Chiefs stuck with their first-round thesis for at least one more day, using the 40th overall selection of the 2026 NFL Draft to take Oklahoma edge rusher R Mason Thomas on Friday night.
With three top-40 picks for the first time since 2008, the Chiefs have gone cornerback, defensive tackle and edge.
The latest is the surprise, against the grain even, for a defensive coordinator who prefers long, bulky defensive ends — those who play the run as well as they do the pass.
Thomas isn’t that. He’s all of 241 pounds, with sub-32-inch arms.
The prevailing question with Thomas is how much Steve Spagnuolo will use him. It’s that odd of a fit.
Well, an odd fit for the past.
In this draft? It’s a snug fit into an unspoken but evident two-pronged theme on the defensive side of the football.
• The Chiefs are stockpiling speed.
• And they’re targeting those who win at the line of scrimmage with it.
There are real questions about whether Thomas can set the edge as a run defender, particularly at this level. It’s to be determined whether he will work. But there are virtually no questions about his ability to get off the line of scrimmage — and he’s in the 91st percentile on 40-yard dash times for edge defenders.
“He gets beat up for being small and not long enough, but I think he’s going to be a nightmare for tall tackles because he can bend, and he’s really explosive,” an NFL scouting director told draft analyst Lance Zierlein.
That’s a combination the Chiefs have recently avoided — pass-rush specialists rather than those who can play all three downs.
Is it a shift in philosophy? Maybe so.
Thomas’ pass-rush win rate on true pass sets ranked top 10 in the country last year, per PFF. And while he appears to have developed more than one path to the quarterback, those paths start in the same fashion:
Speed.
It’s the same way that they hope their first-round defensive lineman can win.
The Chiefs picked Thomas just 11 selections and one day after adding Clemson defensive tackle Peter Woods, a sub-300 pound, 6-foot-2 interior presence who they believe is so quick off the line of scrimmage that they compared him to a player you might know.
“You can say Aaron Donald-type quick,” coach Andy Reid said, before cautioning, “he’s not Aaron Donald.”
Well, “yet,” he added.
That’s speed off the line from defensive tackle at 29 overall, though perhaps undersized.
And that’s speed off the line from the edge at 40 overall, though certainly undersized.
It’s not an all-out rebuke of their past preferences, because every team desires speed and quick first steps, but it’s at least a re-ordering of them. The Chiefs have either shied away from smaller-framed edge rushers, or Spagnuolo has simply shied away from playing them.
The Chiefs are undoubtedly addressing a problem — they ranked 19th in quarterback pressure rate despite possessing the league’s third-highest blitz rate — but they’re attempting to solve it in a different way.
It’s notable they don’t make this addition without a conversation with the defensive coordinator who felt so strongly about their first pick that he begged Chiefs general manager Brett Veach to conceal their interest.
Oh, yeah. Their first pick.
There are a lot more traits that stand out about LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane, but I’ll let you guess two of them:
• He’s quick.
• He wins at the line of scrimmage.
The conversation about what it required to move up to No. 6 aside — because it was indeed a lot — Delane is the best cornerback in the draft, and he’s particularly elite when they put him in a specific role.
He’s truly terrific in press coverage. Delane allowed only two receptions all year in press coverage. He allowed only six for 68 yards in 138 man-to-man coverage snaps, per PFF data. He wins at the line, and he has the speed (4.38 40-yard dash) to make up for it when he doesn’t.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid acknowledged after Thursday’s opening round that the team entered the NFL Draft looking to improve their defense. Which, as mentioned a day ago in this space, says they believe the offensive improvement will come from the scheme, if not from top-tier talent in the draft.
But what Reid didn’t say is that the Chiefs were intending to be more specific — even if it meant departing from their norms.