2026 Kansas City Chiefs Mock Draft: With Mahomes Healthy Again, What Draft Pieces Are Needed To Make a Run?

The 2025 NFL season has come to a close, leaving us ready to start the NFL draft process.

Not to sound like a doomer, but the Chiefs pulled off a disasterclass last season, even before Patrick Mahomes went down with injury. Heading into that week 15 game, the Chiefs were sitting at 6-7, barely having life in their quest for a playoff berth. That obviously ended for good when Mahomes tore his ACL, but they certainly weren't guaranteed anything even with a healthy Mahomes.

Frankly, things don't look great for the Chiefs heading into 2026, either. It puts them in this bit of a conundrum - it might be best to retool, if not rebuild, but you can't do that with Mahomes on the roster. You also can't trade away a likely future hall of famer who'll be turning 31 in September - still in his prime by most standards, even if he's been down from his peak for a couple of years.

To make matters worse, the Chiefs are down to six picks this season, although their gap in picks is late, not early. And in this Kansas City Chiefs mock draft, we're not making any trades to get them more.

With an injection of young talent needed basically everywhere, and the Chiefs likely to continue to push for contention, let's try to find the right rookies to give them the best chance of success.

Kansas City Chiefs Mock Draft Picks

• Round 1, Pick 9: Keldric Faulk, EDGE, Auburn

• Round 2, Pick 40: Christen Miller, DT, Georgia

• Round 3, Pick 74: Jadarian Price, RB, Notre Dame

• Round 4, Pick 109: Joe Royer, TE, Cincinnati

• Round 5, Pick 146: Fa'alili Fa'amoe, OT, Wake Forest

• Round 5, Pick 176: Charlie Demmings, CB, Stephen F. Austin

Draft Analysis

The defensive line is our starting point here, and I expect that to be a similar result come April. We start with a true traditional defensive end in Keldric Faulk, who can help support the pass rush and be a plus run defender at his size and with his skill set. We help in the middle by drafting Christen Miller to follow that up.

The headlines, of course, will fall to Jadarian Price, who could instantly sit atop of the depth chart for the Chiefs should they not make a move in free agency to fill the position. (As of this writing in early March, they haven't signed Breece Hall yet. Give it a few weeks!) The run game was absolutely lifeless, and if they're going to return to being an offensive threat overall, they need to be able to show some ability to tote the rock.

Given the Chiefs are also in a precarious cap situation (again, bad conundrum!), they've announced they're moving on from right tackle Jawaan Taylor already, and I expect they also may move on from Noah Gray for cap reasons, so we add in some youth at those positions here as well.

Fantasy Impacts

Jadarian Price is obviously in a smash spot here, at least from a volume perspective, if the Chiefs don't bring in anyone else to compete for a true starting role. He's a clear first round dynasty pick in that scenario. I think it's more complicated if the aforementioned Breece Hall shows up on a medium-to-long-term deal, reducing him to a change of pace back; he's still going to have some dynasty appeal, but it ends up looking like more of a second round value.

For redraft leagues, under the assumption that Jadarian Price is the RB1, he's a high bet for volume, which should propel him up pretty high on draft boards. I could see him going in the 5th-6th round or so in 12-team PPR leagues, behind the elites but among that fringy next tier.

In best ball, the price is going to the moon, as it does for almost any rookie RB with a path to playing time, so I'm likely to be out on him, but I'd suspect that same range for redraft is where I'd start thinking about it.

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