KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Several hours before the start of the NFL draft, Chiefs general manager John Dorsey decided to take an afternoon walk around Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium in an attempt to clear his head.
He mulled over different options, the players that might be available when the Chiefs were finally on the clock at No. 28. But he also considered the possibility that another team would want to trade up for the late-round pick, allowing Kansas City to gain valuable choices later on.
It turned out to be exactly what happened.
The Chiefs sent their lone pick Thursday night to the 49ers for their second-round pick along with choices in the fourth and sixth rounds. San Francisco wound up using the first-round selection on Joshua Garnett, a mammoth offensive guard out of Stanford.
“I had three or four scenarios I had looked on over the course of the week leading into this,” Dorsey said. “Trading down was a possibility – a real possibility – if A, B and C weren’t there. And at the end of the day, I’m very happy with the way things worked out for us.”
Kansas City will have the No. 37 overall pick when the draft resumes with the second and third rounds Friday night. They will also have their original second-round choice at No. 59.
“We’re still going to get really good players here. That’s the beauty of this whole thing,” Dorsey said. “We have two picks in the second round and there’s really good players to be had.”
The Chiefs had their third-round pick stripped as part of the penalties handed down for a tampering case last offseason. So when runs on cornerback and wide receiver took several top players off the board at their biggest positions of the need Thursday night, trading down became the logical move.
It’s the sixth time that Kansas City has traded out of the first round and the first time the club hasn’t made a first-round selection since 2004. That year, they traded from No. 30 into the second round and grabbed forgettable defensive tackle Junior Siavii with the 36th overall selection.
Dorsey has been reluctant to move around in the draft since arriving in Kansas City, but he was part of some wise moves while working in the front office in Green Bay. The Packers traded out of the first round in 2008, for example, and got wide receiver Jordy Nelson with their new second-round pick.
There were still players available that the Chiefs ultimately passed on.
Ole Miss defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche, a massive talent with a series of character concerns, was picked by Arizona moments later. Louisiana Tech run-stuffer Vernon Butler, who had also been linked to the Chiefs, was taken with the No. 31 overall pick by Seattle.
There are still plenty of talented players available on Friday, though.
UCLA linebacker Myles Jack, considered a top-10 talent before a serious knee injury, was not chosen on the draft’s first day. Alabama linebacker Reggie Ragland and his teammate, defensive tackle Jarran Reed, could be fits for Kansas City. If the Chiefs want to shore up their secondary, Ohio State safety Vonn Bell slid from the first round, as did Virginia Tech cornerback Kendall Fuller.
When asked about first-round surprises, it was Jack’s slide that Dorsey brought up.
“He’s a good football player and I’m sure he’ll go early tomorrow,” Dorsey said, dancing around the possibility of taking Jack in the second round. “I’m not going to talk about medicals, but what I will say is by moving down, I think we strategically did the best we possibly could moving forward.
“What I want to do is sit down (Friday) with personnel guys and talk through things – talk to the medical staff – and I’ll be able to better assess those things.”