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The Kansas City Chiefs have brought one of their former coaches back into the fold. The AFC West champions hired Rod Wilson back in March, according to the Chiefs Wire’s Charles Goldman.
Wilson’s NFL journey began as a player. He was a seventh-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears in 2005 and would end his six-year NFL stint having played 51 games with the Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, gathering 47 tackles, 1 tackle for loss, and 1 forced fumble, per Pro Football Reference. He also played in four playoff games, including 2 NFC Championship appearances in 2006 and 2010 with Chicago.
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Once he hung up his cleats, Wilson started his coaching career at Charleston Southern, where he spent four seasons from 2013 to 2016 coaching safeties, inside linebacker, and assisted with special teams, according to the Chiefs website. In 2017, Wilson joined Kansas City’s coaching staff as a special teams assistant under coordinator Dave Toub, who was Wilson’s special teams coordinator during Wilson’s time in Chicago as a player.
Wilson remained in his role with the Chiefs until 2020, which is when he left the program to coach linebackers at South Carolina, his alma mater. During the 2021 season, he coached inside linebackers at Coastal Carolina.
Chiefs 2022 Coaching Staff Changes
Kansas City’s coaching staff has had several changes this offseason. The Chiefs lost quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka, who joined the New York Giants’ coaching staff as an offensive coordinator. He was then replaced by former Kansas City offensive coordinator and Bears head coach Matt Nagy, who re-joined the Chiefs’ staff as a senior assistant/quarterbacks coach in late February.
Defensive line coach Brendan Daley switched to coaching linebackers along with his duties as the run game coordinator after Matt House left to become the defensive coordinator for LSU. To replace Daley, Kansas City hired the Jacksonville Jaguars 2021 defensive coordinator, Joe Cullen, as the defensive line coach.
Cornerbacks/secondary coach Sam Madison joined Miami Dolphins coaching staff as a cornerbacks coach/pass game specialist in February. Madison played for the Dolphins from 1997 to 2005, earning four Pro Bowl nods in that timeframe, per Pro Football Reference.
Brett Veach Speaks on KC Trading Up in 1st Round
When the 2022 NFL Draft is underway, the Chiefs will have a league-high 12 draft picks to utilize. However, they don’t have the roster space to bring in 12 rookies, which means using some of that draft capital to move up the board is a possibility.
In the first round, the Chiefs have two draft picks: the 29th and 30th overall picks. Based on some of Kansas City’s roster needs — which include wide receiver, edge rusher, and cornerback — using one or both of those draft picks to move up on Day 1 and get a premium player at one of those positions might be of interest to the Chiefs.
Kansas City general manager Brett Veach detailed his thoughts on potentially trading up in the first round of the draft.
“I don’t probably expect a huge jump up unless something unforeseen happens, but we’ll be flexible and let the board talk to us,” Veach said during his pre-draft press conference on Friday, April 22.
Moving up in the first round would likely only happen if a player Kansas City has graded highly begins to slip down the board. But how many first-round grades do the Chiefs have this year?
Not very many.
“I think there’s a lot of similarities to the [2021] draft. I think we have right around 16 to 18 names on our front board as first-round picks,” Veach explained. “Picking at 29 and 30, our odds of maybe one of those guys falling isn’t great, but at the same time, we probably aren’t factoring in quarterbacks that most teams do. I’m sure there are quarterbacks worthy of a first-round grade, we’re just obviously not going in that direction.”
If you factor in teams that might want to draft a quarterback in the first round, the players the Chiefs have graded as first-round talents could all be gone by picks 19 to 21, which are owned by the New Orleans Saints, Pittsburgh Steelers, and New England Patriots respectively.
Despite a scarcity of first-round talent on Kansas City’s big board, Veach detailed that there’s a lot of value in the draft, specifically in the second round. That works in the Chiefs’ favor, as they have four selections in the first two rounds.
“But I think similar to last year, when you look at value in this draft, [picks] 30 to 60 is really good. We were able to get Nick Bolton, Creed Humphrey last year [in the second round], I think there will be a lot of value similar to that, a lot of really good players in that second, third round.”
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