32. Kansas City Chiefs (12-4): Jordan Elliott, DL, Missouri
The reigning Super Bowl champs could go a few different ways here — cornerback and linebacker for sure, and with defensive lineman Chris Jones about to get a nuclear (and well deserved) payday in free agency, it would also be wise to reinforce the defensive interior. Let’s start there in this case, since the Chiefs have $13,674,494 in cap space before any releases, and Jones is going to get somewhere between $17 million and $20 million per year. Like Jones, Missouri’s Elliott is a relentless pocket-pusher who can wreck a double-team when he remembers to use his hands to get separation, and at 6-foot-4 and 315 pounds, he fits the paradigm that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo likes in his defensive tackles — ruthless to the quarterback, and effective in multiple gaps.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”