NFL roster no. 8: Kansas City Chiefs
I will be honest, I struggled putting the Kansas City Chiefs this high, but that’s the power of Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes makes this roster so much better and you have to respect the Chiefs no matter if they lost arguably their best players on offense and defense in the 2022 offseason or not.
Okay, it’s debatable if Tyrann Mathieu was the “best” defensive player on the KC roster, but certainly one of the most important.
And they let him go.
The Chiefs lost plenty in 2022, but they also reloaded with some very interesting players that could excel with Mahomes pulling the strings.
JuJu Smith-Schuster could be this team’s WR1. Skyy Moore might not be far behind. All due respect to Mecole Hardman, I think those players are the future for the Chiefs.
Travis Kelce hasn’t gone anywhere.
The offensive line got a massive upgrade last offseason and the Chiefs kept that unit intact.
Defensively, there’s some reloading happening but Kansas City found a stride last year and could carry that momentum into 2022 even with a lot of new pieces in the secondary.
Justin Reid, Trent McDuffie, and Bryan Cook are the most critical pieces coming on board in 2022 to join L’Jarius Sneed, one of the best defensive backs in the game.
The Chiefs have speed and aggressiveness at linebacker with young Willie Gay Jr. and Nick Bolton as the top guys heading into 2022.
The defensive front features Chris Jones and Frank Clark, but will also get a boost from first-round pick George Karlaftis, a high-effort player out of Purdue who always seems to be making plays behind the line of scrimmage.
This Chiefs roster has more in 2022, but without Tyreek Hill, Tyrann Mathieu, and Charvarius Ward, are they really better? The jury is out on that one, at best.