Despite the signings of Joe Thuney, and Kyle Long the Chiefs have been pretty quiet this offseason, though weaknesses still need to be addressed on the defensive side. I had cornerback in the top 5 positional needs going in the offseason.
Originally an undrafted free agent for the Dallas Cowboys, Charvarius Ward came to Kansas City via trade for guard Parker Ehinger and has quickly worked his way up the depth chart to be a serviceable quarterback at the very best.
L’Jarius Sneed has caught the hearts of many fans in the kingdom and surely mans the CB1 position heading into next season, with Bashaud Breeland remaining to be unsigned we will see what happens there. The big question mark remains “who plays in the slot position?” The Chiefs have oftentimes had safety Tyrann Mathieu come into the box and play the slot corner position which would often times leave the defense vulnerable on the back end. Rashad Fenton also takes on that duty sometimes but he never plays a majority of the snaps
On Sunday, March 21, I ran across this tweet and instantly got excited.
Now I got to admit I didn’t know much about K’Waun Williams but the thought that the Chiefs were actively attempting the address positional needs felt good. It feels good as a fan to see this organization continuously trying to improve.
K’Waun Williams was an undrafted free agent picked up by John Lynch and the San Francisco 49ers and since his arrival, he was a vital piece to their defense. In the 2020 season, Williams dealt with injuries that kept him out for the majority of the year. So I went to the previous year to look at his production and in the 2019 season when the 49ers defense was ranked No.1 in the NFL and led them to the super bowl against our own Kansas City Chiefs, Williams's production was among the best in the NFL.
In the 2019 season K’Waun Williams produced:
66 combined tackles
2 sacks
5 forced fumbles
2 passes defensed
2 interceptions
During Williams’ tenure in San Fran, he has led his team's secondary in numerous categories, including regular-season tackles (150), TFL (9), sacks (2), QB hits (5), and Forced Fumbles (6). Most importantly for Kansas City, most of his production came from the slot position which in today’s NFL is proving to be an absolutely vital position. According to Pro Football Focus Williams graded out at 80.3 overall which was 7th best, but looking at those specifically playing slot corner he ranked 2nd only behind Quinton Dunbar. Simply put K’Waun Williams was one of the best slot corners in the NFL in the 2019-2020 season.
In addition to being productive in coverage, Williams is also a willing tackler and has shown the ability to blitz well which Steve Spagnuolo likes to do with defensive backs. In just 8 games in 2020, Williams recorded 2 sacks, 5 tackles for a loss, and 2 QB Hits. On the negative side, Williams will be turning 30 pretty soon and just came off an injury-plagued season. Williams is also on the slighter side at 5'9", and 185 lbs but he's a physical nickel corner and he doesn't have an extensive injury history besides an unlucky season in 2020.
One of the biggest issues many fans have with the secondary's performance last year was how many penalties our cornerbacks got called on them. In 2020 Kansas City was called for 17 defensive pass interference (30th) and 10 defensive holding calls (8th). (and I’m not even going to bring up the Super Bowl). In 2019 K’Waun Williams committed only 3 penalties all year. THREE PENALTIES, that’s it. To put that Into perspective, Bashaud Breeland committed 13, Charvarius Ward committed 11 and L’Jarius Snead committed 5 all in the 2020 season. Only committing 3 penalties within a season takes a great deal of discipline.
Like mentioned before I didn’t know much about Williams before now but after minimal research, you start to see a pretty clear picture. K’Waun Williams would be an absolute killer addition to this secondary. Not only does he play at a nearly elite level for his position but he is disciplined while doing so and has the versatility to play in a Steve Spagnuolo defense.
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