Did the Chiefs Get Cornerback Right This Offseason?
Josh Brisco goes solo to break down Kansas City's biggest long-term gamble: trading Trent McDuffie, letting Jaylen Watson walk, moving up in the draft for Mansoor Delane, and betting on a new generation of defensive backs.
Video Transcript
Hello and happy Tuesday.
I'm not calling it a Tuesday here on Arrowhead Addict.
I'm Josh O Briscoe with you for today's edition of the show.
Sterling allegedly has lost his voice, which is one of the more important things to try to maintain, to try to keep in working order as a professional talker , uh, but apparently he had a big day out on stage out of FIFA Fan Fest yesterday.
I can't imagine that it was cheering, uh, very much, but a loud day nonetheless, and a really Excruciatingly disappointing day for American soccer, but it will not be an excruciatingly disappointing day here on this show.
Today, I wanna dig into one topic that's, um, I don't, I, I can't in good faith tell you that it's gone under the radar, because in many ways, it has been the highlight and the most impactful movements of the Chiefs' offseason.
But as we've collectively now survived the month of June, we're now into July, and we're still a little ways away from training camp, and some of these things that will give us something resembling news.
But as we've gone through all of these different facets of whether the Chiefs get better or worse here?
How do you feel about the wide receiver room today?
Pretty much the same as I felt about it, a week ago, 1 month ago, 2 months ago.
We, we till a lot of the same ground over and over.
But I did think that there was something a little bit interesting that that brings us back around to, again, quietly might be overstating it, but almost quietly.
is going to determine how we look back on this offseason for the Chiefs.
I think a lot of the things that we've learned, and a lot of the things that have led the news cycles talking about this team on a regular basis.
Has been about what they didn't do.
Didn't bring in receiver help, didn't bring in tight end help, didn't bring in running back help, but is that enough for the entire offense?
You didn't bring in a veteran defensive end.
So it's been a lot of time talking about where things could still improve.
That makes sense, cause we're trying to fill some time and have some creative ideas during the quietest part of the NFL calendar.
But what the Chiefs did do this offseason, was completely overhaul their cornerback room.
Obviously, again, now, you're rolling your eyes, again, well, Josh, of course, that wasn't low profile.
Their biggest swing of the offseason was trading away Trent McDuffie, and their 2nd biggest swing of the offseason was trading up to select Monso Delane at #6 overall in the NFL draft.
So these were really the Chiefs' blockbuster moves.
We know that already.
The thing that I'm questioning today, and something that we can kick around, if you're in the comment section, I'll take some questions as we go.
And if not, I could talk about this for a while because I think it's going to be really, really, really impactful, not just in 2026, but for many years to come.
Did the Chiefs get their cornerback shuffle right this offseason?
And Seth Walder on ESPN, this was, this story was from a little bit ago, about a week or so, but I didn't see this part of it until earlier today , and it kinda put the pieces of the puzzle together for what I thought would be fair game to discuss here on, on July 7th.
So hope you had a good holiday weekend, hope everybody has the same number of digits you went into the weekend with, and I, again, I had nothing to do with what happened in US soccer.
Hopefully, things are, are on the upswing for you from here on out.
But Seth Walder wrote about this on ESPN and graded every team's offseason.
Now , The act of grading anything in football before players ever put on shoulder pads for their new teams, of course, that's a bit of a silly exercise, but you can grade the process, and that's what Wilder attempted to do here.
He gives the Chiefs a C+ for the offseason.
There's stuff about the ground I've already mentioned that we've covered tilled a million times, wide receiver, running back, tight end, making Patrick Mahomes' life easier versus trying to rejuvenate the defense.
The only part I wanna talk about today, really, is that corner shuffle, because those show up in all three categories that Wilder did for every team in the league.
The biggest move, I think accurately, is trading Trent McDuffie to the Rams.
The move he liked the most from the Chiefs' offseason was trading Trent McDuffie to the Rams, and his least favorite move of the Chiefs' offseason was trading up to get Monso Delane.
Now you're seeing why all of this sort of solidifies, as, oh man, it's not just all the turnover at corner, it's still a lot of pressure on a guy who again, has not put on official Chief shoulder pads and hit anyone with them yet, but there's a lot of pressure on Monso Delane, there's a lot of pressure on Brett Veach for this draft class to be as special, at least as special, as the McDuffie Karloft this draft class that kind of kicked off that next era of successful Chiefs football.
But you hope it works out for all parties involved, cause if it doesn't, this is going to be.
The thing that hurts.
You know, not getting Jauan Jennings hurts your offense for this year, but for many years to come.
This is the thing you've got to get right.
You had a great couple of corners that you either couldn't afford or didn't want to afford to keep around.
You also let Jalen Watson walk being the other.
And now you gotta cobble it together.
So, first of all, again, take note of the fact that Seth Walder loved the Trent McDuffie trade, that it was good value in return for a good player, it means the Chiefs didn't have to pay Trent McDuffie, then he gets paid from the Rams.
Losing Jalen Watson, I still kind of go back and forth.
I wonder if, if the Delaine draft pick is still something that you are urgently trading up to make, if Jalen Watson is on your team, but he was gonna cost real money.
The Rams paid him real money.
As Walter writes, as much as it stung to lose McDuffie, it was worth it.
The Rams were surrendering more than a first-round pick's worth of value for the right to pay McDuffie a market rate.
The Chiefs get the benefit of the surplus value from the draft capital and the money saved by not paying McDuffie.
Those resources can be used elsewhere on their roster.
Watson signed a more reasonable deal that Kansas City could have considered matching, but the Chiefs are tight on cap space, so it was reasonable to allocate those resources elsewhere.
Put the pause in there, cause that's how it happened chronologically.
You can't say you knew where Delane was gonna be as you decide to make all these moves.
Chronologically speaking, that's pretty good process through Seth Walder's eyes, and I tend to agree.
I would have been very interested in keeping uh Jalen Watson.
I was very interested in keeping Jalen Watson.
This is where the Chiefs end up.
I wanna come back and talk about the other guys on this depth chart too, because this is not just about McDuffie, Watson, and Delane.
It's about the guys that they have.
For better or for worse, under contract through this season, and, and some of them for better, for beyond.
But then Wilder continues and talks about the delay aspect of it, which he was not a fan of.
He writes, They allocated those resources in an interesting way, moving up to pick another corner.
The Chiefs traded picks number 974, and 148 for number 6 to select Delane.
He was the best quarterback in the cornerback, excuse me, in the draft, but considering the Chiefs' prowess in developing corners, dealing to move higher in the top 10 to select some to select one seems like bad value.
There is some probability that Delane could have fallen to number 9 too.
At safety, the Chiefs lost Brian Cook in free agency, but added Loy Gilman for several million less per year than what Cook received in Cincinnati.
That's kind of the end of the, um, the secondary side of, of Waldorf's point.
There was also a podcast that Brian Schottenheimer, head coach of the Cowboys, just did that I, I saw a little bit ago, where he talked about how the Cowboys had a deal in place with the Chiefs at 9 for the Cowboys to move up for Caleb Downs and the Chiefs to move back with Dallas.
Now, there are a bunch of sliding doors here, none of this is guaranteed, but you, you listen to that and you think about what we know the Cowboys offered to the Browns to move up to 9 after the Browns had already moved back once, and what ends up happening throughout all of those teams and, and that shuffling from, you know, 1512, 10, 86, kind of where you start to see the, the tier drops in, in player categories or, or just the price to move up.
If you do think like, oh man , well, the Chiefs, the Chiefs were in a place where they could have had either Monso Delane or.
Ruben Bain and Makai Lemon.
It's really hard not to walk without door number 2.
Now, now, maybe you wouldn't have been able to get both of those first-rounders from the Cowboys if you were moving back in a range where you still would have gotten Bain.
Maybe you don't end up getting that Makay Lemon pick, the Chiefs gave up a, a decent amount to move up for Delane.
So if you stand there at 9, even if you had to throw 74 in to get number, I think 20 overall back from Dallas.
There's a world where this draft class is Ruben Bain, Makai Lemon, and Peter Woods.
Again, lots of sliding doors, you can't guarantee any of those things.
But that feels like a king's ransom.
If Monster Delane is a top 5 corner by the end of his 2nd NFL season, you'd probably take the the Pro Bowl all-pro caliber corner over the mystery box of those other young players, but the Chiefs have so many reasonable needs on the roster at so many places.
That's hard for me to look past and then to not be a little bit, just a little tweaked about, right?
Just, just a little pinch in the analysis of.
I like Monso Delane a lot.
I would love more chances to build this team out.
With more potential blue chip talent at a number of levels.
Ultimately, the Chiefs didn't think that Ruben Bain or Makai Lemon were blue chip talents.
They believe Monso Delane was, which goes back to how important it is that they get this entire shuffling of the position group right.
So, like Robert in the comment says, the secondary is gonna be special, it'll take time, but I trust those coaches.
I'll bet Delane has more career interceptions than McDuffie.
That's probably true.
McDuffie wasn't really a, a uh interception, a turnover machine.
If you trust the coaches though, that can be an argument for, let's make sure Noel Williams is a starter.
Let's invest somewhere in the 3rd or 4th round to make sure there's another guy who can be in the mix with Christian Fulton.
They end up bringing back Legerius Snead, which I don't think really changes anything for, for Monsor Delane in particular, but.
You've seen them have success cobbling together with with duct tape and hopes and dreams, and mid-round, late round picks.
You've seen them get absolutely excellent performances, or at least much better than expected performances out of less blue chippy, lower caliber prospects, perhaps, turn into very high-level NFL players.
But again, the Chiefs said, hey, we, we know all that.
They're well aware of, of their coaching history and their successes, and ways that they have gotten away with the cornerback position, and they looked around and they said , no, no, we, we think that the blue chip Monsor Delane.
That is going to be something that we haven't really had in terms of a persistent shutdown outside corner.
We're gonna go ahead and pay the premium, which they did.
We're gonna pay the premium for that guy cause we think he's that much of a difference maker, and again, he might be.
I, I don't know if this is coming across very evidently, it, I would assume it probably is relatively obvious.
I'm a little bit conflicted, cause I really liked Ruben Bain, I really like Monso Delane, I really liked Maikai Lemon, and again, I'm just throwing those in because of the Cowboys talk.
If the Chiefs would have stayed at 9 and drafted Jordan Tyson, I would have been very excited.
The reason that I think this is more than just, you know, but.
They sure gotta make sure their first round pick is good at football, which is, you know, flatly useless analysis.
The reason that I think it goes a little bit deeper and a little more interesting than that is because of the way they opened and closed those corner-specific doors this year.
They drafted the #1 corner in this class by 1 mile.
I, if injuries didn't exist, maybe it would have been a little bit closer, but the way that things panned out, Monso Delane is clearly the #1 corner in this class, and they paid a premium to make sure that they got him.
I will say, and Robert, I appreciate you being here and leaving the good luck in the four-leaf clover and all that, you say, No Williams is another lockdown corner, Delane Williams and Kennedy.
If, if No Williams is a lockdown corner, you should probably make sure that you have a lockdown starter at defensive end, right?
That was like the Ruben Bain argument of it all.
There's still a ton of projection, there's still a ton of unknowns.
Um, I, I do think this from Alan earlier, I, I fully agree with, with this comment where he said I see some learning curves with the secondary, but I think by the end of the year, they will be good to great.
Uh, I agree with the learning curves, and I, I agree with the, the end result.
I think that's a, a good way to look at it.
It's a good thing to keep in mind when things get ugly in mid-September, cause it will at some point.
Uh, there will be some game along the way, there'll be some time where.
Or Delane, or No Williams, or Christian Fulton , he's not a young guy in, in NFL years, but he is in just going into year two with very little playing time last year in Spaggs' defense.
Aloe Gilman or someone, one of these newer faces is gonna be out of position.
They're gonna make a mistake.
The Chiefs are gonna give up a big play.
I don't know if it's 3rd and 16, if it's a red zone touchdown, if it's uh a play that allows the opposing offense to run up the clock, maybe it costs you a game , maybe it doesn't.
But there will be learning curves, there always are.
I think that's something you have to, you have to not only accept, but kind of embrace for Steve Spagnolo , for a defense that does want to develop on the fly, and now kind of has to.
Be ready for the learning curves, be ready for the growing pains.
So when they happen, you don't overreact, cause that's not helpful for anybody.
Monsor Delaine will make a mistake, and by week 12, week 14.
I think you're gonna be saying, oh wow, OK, well, that's, that's why the Chiefs made that investment.
The tricky thing, and again, this isn't Delaine's fault, it's just the tricky fact of how the Chiefs took this huge hack.
If Monsor Delane is a very good player.
If he's, for example, Jalen Watson You probably didn't make the right draft pick.
You, you probably didn't do the right thing this offseason.
If Monso Delane is Trent McDuffie.
It's Kind of arguable.
It depends on how quickly he gets there, right?
If he looks like last year's Trent McDuffie in his rookie season, I'm not selling any stock, that's a good thing.
But if he rises to a level where he's in kind of that like fringe top 5 to 10 corners, and, and McDuffie is kind of tough because the size thing and the slot expertise were all parts of his story.
If Delane is just really good.
You probably overpaid with that premium, and you probably didn't quite nail the shuffling of the cornerback position.
If Monso Delane is the best corner that the Chiefs have had under Steve Spagnolo, you're fine.
No one's gonna be that stressed about giving up 74 and 148 to move up 3 spots to get him.
But it's just so interesting that they made, with the experiences that they've had as a coaching staff, it's so interesting that they made such a 1 to 1 switch in terms of investment.
Tyler says over on the uh the Facebook page, that I would think that they downgraded the entire secondary this offseason, but they have the potential to be as good in the next few years.
They essentially replaced McDuffie, Williams, and Watson with Delane, Snead, Cohu, and Elam.
I'll come back to some of those other guys in a minute too.
I think Delane can be a star and a starter.
They can't say about that about the Other guys they brought in.
I think there's a lot of truth to that, Tyler.
I, I do think that there is a multi-year bet here, because obviously, you could have kept McDuffie for one more year and then maybe you try to tag and trade, and, I mean, it could have been a whole disaster next offseason.
And Watson was a free agent, so you have to make that decision now.
I do think that they're looking at a future of Delane and Williams, specifically being the guys on the outside, and then ideally, Kennedy in the slot cause he's the younger one of the group.
If that group all, all develops.
Like a similar amount that the lower drafted players have developed, then you really are looking at potentially the core of the best cornerback room in the NFL in two years, where, where, you know, after one full year, going into 2027, Delane Williams Kennedy might end up proving, again, like that that that's one of the best trios in football, that's on the table.
I do think it, especially when you consider the safety position.
It's not like a big hot take to say that the defense, where they did spend all of those early defensive resources, it's not a big hot take to say that the defensive roster is in a worse place today than it was this time last year.
The defensive tackle group is much better.
The defensive end group is at least much more interesting.
The linebacker room is a little worse cause you lost Leo Chanel and didn't add anybody, and the safety room is, is a little bit worse.
You lost Brian Cook, you replaced him with Eloi Gilman at a good number, um, and you're waiting on Jaden Hicks or Chris Roland Wallace to kind of get into the mix.
So I do think that those questions are really legitimate, and that's why this feels like an inflection point.
I could really see it going either way.
I could really see this working out tremendously, and we would look back and we'll call this the offseason of the defensive reset, part two, after doing it with, with McDuffie and Car Loftus, you do it this year with Delane and Peter Woods.
That is entirely on the table.
But you should also be ready for Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watson to have an incredible season in Los Angeles this year, and just be prepared for that.
They are now playing behind Miles Garrett and a, a much kind of rejuvenated feeling defense on the Super Bowl favorites, and if they're excellent all year long and they win a ring in Los Angeles, that's, that's a part of this story that you had to know was in the cards when you didn't.
Make a, a I don't wanna say didn't make a reasonable offer to Trent McDuffie.
I, when you didn't make a market offer to Trent McDuffie, you didn't make a market offer to Jalen Watson.
That's just a possibility of, of this kind of huge swing that they made on multiple occasions.
The draft capital thing, I talked about a ton at the time, I, I won't continue doing all of the draft math there.
I do still think that having the The Delaine Woods double dip makes life a little easier, and that's something you can only do because you traded away Trent McDuffie .
I do still think that there's hope there if our Mason Thomas is tremendous, but again, we're getting kind of out of the, out of the secondary and up into the, to the front seven, just thinking about how all of those moving parts go together.
But to go back to Snead, Khu, Elam, and even, even Christian Fulton.
I had this thought earlier, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna Float this out on Tuesday, with or without stew.
There were, unfortunately, I'm laughing now, cause I was gonna say 2, but really there were 3 incoming free agents last offseason, that felt like relatively.
Relatively substantial moves.
One was Elijah Mitchell, and that was the least of the money, it's not that substantial.
It's a swing and a miss on a guy that didn't seem to have juice after he got healthier, and that's unfortunate, but, you know, it happens.
The two big moves that I'm thinking about now are signing Jalen Moore and signing Christian Fulton.
My, maybe borderline hot take, considering his his cap hit for this year.
Is that I don't think the Chiefs would undo the Jalen Moore contract.
If they, if they were given a big undo button.
I don't think they'd use it on him.
He has a nearly $19 million cap hit this year.
That's real money.
But if he's your starting right tackle.
And he kept you from having to take alignment at 9.
Or maybe just close your eyes and start Esapole and hope that it works out, which again, maybe he's good enough that you say, I, I don't do that contract for Esapole to start, maybe, then now you're swing tackles that undrafted rookie, and so I, you know, I'm, I'm sticking with Jalen Moore at 19 million for this year.
And even last year, he was a super highly paid backup, but you didn't know he was gonna be a backup when you signed him.
You, you didn't take Josh Simmons at number 3 overall, and you're planning on doing that all offseason, you got him at 32.
So by the time, and even then, you didn't know, I mean, I guess I didn't know, the Chiefs probably had a pretty good idea.
We didn't know if Josh Simmons was gonna be ready for training camp.
So I think you had to sign Jalen Moore last offseason, and the fact that it was Juan Taylor on the right side and Josh Simmons on the left, and then Jalen Moore steps in and has to play a bunch while Simmons is gone and all of that.
I don't think you undo that contract and you still have him there here this year.
I'm Pretty darn certain the Chiefs would undo the Christian Fulton contract if they could.
I think that's the one that you'd be control Z, command Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z, come on, dang thing.
I think that's, that's the move that I think you look at and you cringe a little bit.
Because And this is not Delane specific anymore.
I wanna make that clear.
But for $13 million You'd like to know that you've got a starting corner, not an elite corner, and not even Jalen Watson necessarily.
But you'd like to think that that Christian Fulton was gonna be able to give you .
12 games of like quality starting play on the outside.
And right now, I don't, I don't know that he's ahead of rookie or vet minimum legerious need right now.
Sneads played way more in Spaggs' defense.
I've said this before, but Sneads played more snaps for Spaggs than the rest of the cornerback room combined.
A lot of young guys, obviously, you lose Watson and McDuffie the same offseason.
Mentioned that.
The Christian Fulton thing is a little bit of a a a a monkey wrench into the whole operation.
Cause they could still free up $5 million by letting him go.
They could have freed it up earlier at this point, I don't really think it makes a lot of sense.
But it's an $8 million dead cap hit, and they paid him real money last year to just not really play.
He looked good enough in those last two sad, meaningless games at the end of the season, that I think there's reason to hope that he is a positive force this year.
And you gotta have at least 3 corners that mean something to you, and if that's Delane, Williams, and Fulton, that's OK.
Feels like it could be Snead in that mix now.
That comment I read earlier mentioned Kayir Elam.
I think he's kind of a fun reclamation project, but it's harder for me to see him fitting in now than it was when they signed him originally, because now you've drafted your new number 1 guy, and you've already got two guys who are definitely competing for the 2-3 spot, and then you bring back the defensive coordinator's favorite in Lagerius Snead, and you need someone who can play in the slot.
And that's, I guess Delane could do some of that, but I don't think that's the plan for him.
I think the plan for him is to go to the outside and be dominant.
He could do it in a pinch, but I don't think you wanna pinch your #6 overall pick.
Noel Williams is not playing in the slot , and, and Christian Fulton is not playing in the slot.
If you're sure those are your three best corners, then maybe Delane can play inside some.
We talk about growing pains, that just, that feels like a lot to me to give to your young guy.
I'd, I'd rather him become.
A number one outside corner, considering what you gave up to get him.
Not just the trade up, but the pick itself.
And then in the slot, you, you have kind of the hodgepodge that does feel like a Spags Dave Merritt gamble slash experiment.
Maybe it's a little bit of snead in his return.
Maybe Jaden Kennedy gets involved with the rookie, but I think that it's probably more likely that it's Chris Rowland Wallace, who's been around, or Kater Cohu, who is coming off an injury and is not familiar with the defense, even though he is more of a veteran.
I thought Kohu was the leader in the clubhouse for a while.
I've backed off on that a little bit.
And that's also kind of an Elijah Mitchell response in some way too, of just like, I, I don't want to assume that the guy that's fresh off of a serious season-ending knee injury is gonna come back and look like the pre-injury version of himself.
I don't think that's fair to put on the player.
But you've got enough numbers there that that somebody can fit, somebody can take over that role and play some competent football for you.
But ultimately, top to bottom, this offseason is going to have.
Stories that we've already told many times about what the Chiefs didn't do about players who are not wearing red this season.
But the story that we're going to have to wait and see, and that we're gonna have to find out over not just this year, but the next couple of years, is going to be what they did at corner.
You trade Trent McDuffie, you get Peter Woods, and, you know, more, but Peter Woods is the crown jewel of that, and you get him on a rookie contract for 4 years, maybe 5.
You trade up for Monso Delane, you let Jalen Watson walk right over to LA with Trent McDuffie.
And then you cobble together the rest, but it's still best case scenario, it's Delane and Williams on your outside.
That was an an intentional, purposeful decision that the Chiefs made at multiple signposts.
Out with the very, very good, but too expensive, in with the younger and hopefully more cost-controlled, higher upside guys that can send you into the next era of Chiefs football.
I thought it was interesting enough to chat about for a good half an hour on a July Tuesday with you here.
Uh, hopefully, you, you thought it was, you know, worth the time at least.
It's a, it's a pretty quick bite of, of podcasting for your Tuesday as well, even stew-free.
Hopefully, you enjoyed it nonetheless.
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Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your shows, if you haven't left a 5-star review, this moment right now today would be the funniest possible time to do it.
Go leave a five-star review and say something like, July 7th was my favorite ever episode of Tuesdays with Sterling, 5 stars, no notes.
That would give us some content next week too, cause doesn't Sterling like read those?
Let's do that.
Go leave us 5 stars, say today's show is your absolute favorite.
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Thanks for hanging out with us, we'll talk to you again later.
Till next time.
I guess we're out.
