The Kansas City Chiefs have always given undrafted free agents an opportunity to come in and have a chance to make the 53-man roster.
If you can play football at a high level, the coaching staff and front office won’t be overly concerned with draft status. Look no further than the Super Bowl LIV squad and you’ll find it littered with players who started their careers as undrafted free agents. Not just role players either, we’re talking big-time contributors like Damien Williams, Daniel Sorensen, and Charvarius Ward.
The Chiefs have a history of finding diamonds in the rough every year in undrafted free agency. The 2019 season was one of the first in recent memory where Kansas City didn’t have a newly-signed undrafted free agent make the 53-man roster. In the years prior they’ve had at least one newly-signed undrafted free agent make the team.
The 2020 roster is decorated and there are a lot of established players that will draw fierce competition from this UDFA class. This year they signed a total of 19 undrafted free agents to round out their 53-man roster. Whether it’s from outstanding talent or a weak position group, these X players have the best chance to make the Chiefs’ 53-man roster in 2020.
Florida P Tommy Townsend
Special teams coordinator Dave Toub maintains that there will be a “true competition” between Townsend and second-year punter Tyler Newsome for the Chiefs’ punting job. At the same time, he didn’t parse his words talking about Townsend and what the team thought of him coming out of Florida.
“The kid’s got a lot of talent,” Toub said of Townsend. “We really liked him coming out. I had him rated as the best punter coming out this year and he was available for us, and those guys got it done to get him. So that was a pretty good deal.”
On top of Townsend’s ability as a punter, he’s also an experienced holder, which is something the Chiefs also need with the departure of Dustin Colquitt. Another added bonus to his game is that he’s shown the ability to run fake punts successfully.
I’m under the impression that Toub will go with his top-rated punter in this draft class over Newsome, who couldn’t win a job during the 2019 season. It’d take an all-time poor performance from Townsend or another player they like becoming available for something else to happen here.