2024 NFL Draft Depth: Offense Edition

The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner

The Chiefs pick at 32 in the 2024 NFL draft. Obviously, that is the best spot to draft from, as it tends to go to the Super Bowl victor. Unfortunately, it is also the very worst possible pick in the first round, as it is the last. What should Veach do at 32? Taking the best player available (BPA) is generally seen as the best choice, but sometimes a team is forced into particular positions due to significant weaknesses in the team composition.

Today, we are going to look at what positions in this draft are deep, and which ones are much more shallow. Perhaps we will be lucky, and the positions we have significant weaknesses at will also be matched as positions of significant depth in the draft.

For the Chiefs, we have two specific positions of need: Left Tackle and Wide Receiver. Right now, Wanya Morris, a second year player who filled in for a few games for Donovan Smith at LT, is the presumed starter. While he filled in admirably for a couple games, slotting him in for a starting role is a bit worrisome.

To determine how deep a draft class is, I have collected the past 5 drafts (2019-2023). I calculated how many players at a specific position were taken at any given spot in the draft. For example, last year there were five tackles taken in the first round. The first was taken at pick 6, the second at pick 10, then 11, 14, and 27. This would be shown as an increasing line on my graphic going up 1 at 6, then to 2 at pick 10, and continuing up to 5 at 27.

Incidentally, no other tackles were taken until pick 92, when Veach traded up a couple spots for Wanya Morris, whom I mentioned earlier.