Chiefs Draft: 2025 mocks suggest how the team will use the 31st pick

During the offseason, we created a database of the players projected to the Kansas City Chiefs in nearly 150 mock drafts from various sources on the Internet — almost all of them from national writers. We aggregated quite a few of them in our daily Arrowheadlines feature. More than a dozen others were covered in individual Arrowhead Pride articles, in which we provided some additional analysis of the mock draft’s Kansas City pick.

We also collected many others. We ignored those focused on a single team (including the Chiefs) because we were interested in projections that took into account the picks made by all teams. We also avoided the ones in which the 31st pick was traded. Finally, we skipped over those where the writer decided to get cute. These included “all-trade,” “all-surprise,” “all-Ohio State,” “all-lefty” or “what I would do” mock drafts.

Along the way, we’ve kept you updated on what the data appeared to be showing us. Now that we’ve (finally) reached Draft Day, let’s look again.

Is this the final word on the direction the Chiefs will take with their first pick on Thursday night? Maybe. But maybe not.

This is now the fifth season that we have tracked mock drafts. We’ve learned that the data can provide some real insight into what will happen, but that just like any other draft prediction, it can also get things wrong.

Still, each season’s data has given us at least some solid information. A year ago, wide receiver Xavier Worthy was tied with two other wideouts as the player most frequently mocked to Kansas City. The year before, defensive end Felix Anudike-Uzomah topped the list. In 2022, nobody predicted that the Chiefs would trade up to get cornerback Trent McDuffie with one of their first-round picks — but George Karlaftis ranked third among the players mocked to Kansas City.

In some seasons, we have seen roster moves and news stories cause significant changes in how often particular players (or positions) were chosen for the Chiefs. We saw that in 2025, too.

Before the new league year began on March 12, mock drafts focused strongly on offensive tackles (and guards) to the Chiefs — particularly Oregon tackle John Conerly Jr. Offensive linemen were chosen in 55% of the mocks, while defensive linemen were taken in just 31%.

But after Kansas City signed left tackle Jaylon Moore to a two-year, $30 million contract (and the Chiefs made other moves to fill their roster holes with veteran players in preparation for the draft), we thought this trend would change. Over the next four weeks, it did — but not nearly as much as we expected.

During this time, Ohio State offensive tackle Josh Simmons became the leading candidate to be taken by Kansas City at 31 — and defensive tackles like Oregon’s Derrick Harmon and Mississippi’s Walter Nolen started getting some traction. Still, tackles on each side of the line continued to lead the way as offensive linemen (39%) and defensive linemen (38%) were sent to the Chiefs in nearly equal percentages.

But in the last two weeks, things changed again.

In the final run to the draft, offensive linemen were being chosen for Kansas City in 66% of the mock drafts, while defensive linemen fell to just 27%. The most recent data suggests that offensive tackle is most likely to be covered with the team’s first pick, with defensive tackle a fairly distant second. The most likely candidates now seem to be Simmons, Conerly or Nolen.

The bottom line

While we’ve learned to pay attention to what the mock drafts tell us — particularly in the final weeks before the draft — we’ve also learned we can’t depend on them exclusively. We must remember that Kansas City general manager Brett Veach’s draft grades will not necessarily match those made by draft analysts — and also that he will not shy away from a trade that he thinks will improve his chance for a successful draft. Either of those things could make all of this data completely moot.

At the same time, we believe Veach has done a good job of filling the Chiefs’ most significant roster holes with free agents, which should allow him to focus on the best player available when he’s on the clock for every one of the team’s picks. That’s another way the information we’ve gleaned here could be rendered useless.

Just the same, a tackle — either on offense or defense — now looks like a good bet at 31.