KC Chiefs Should Draft LB Ben Heeney

The Kansas City Chiefs should draft former Kansas Jayhawks linebacker Ben Heeney, the Hutchinson, Kansas. native and 2014 All-Big 12 First Teamer. I’m not sure what round and I’m not sure what his ceiling is, but get this guy on my football team.

As the 2015 NFL Draft approaches, the first thing you’re likely to find about Ben Heeney is what he can’t do. Average athlete. Undersized. Exposed in space. Inflated collegiate stats. The list goes on.

Unless, of course, you ask a KU football fan about Heeney, whose father and two uncles played baseball at KU and then you’ll likely hear a whole different evaluation. A warrior. Tough, intelligent, fearless. Twenty-one tackles in a single game.

He’s a legend in Lawrence and he should be, as KC Kingdom’s own Michael Tavis delved into a few weeks ago.

While the truth is probably somewhere in between the two, there’s one thing nobody questions: Heeney is a football player. He’s a film rat and a grinder and he’ll tackle anything that moves. He totaled 21 tackles against Texas Tech in 2014 (Source of link: YouTube.com):

The best part is, he didn’t care how many tackles he had according to Jeff Deters of CJOnline.com. It didn’t matter that Heeney played for a Jayhawks team that wasn’t the best in 2014.

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Heeney is an Andy Reid-special: tough, blue-collar and…bearded. He’s all football, all the time. Heeney is, as Reid frequently says of his own players, “wired that way.” Football is important to him and there’s no price you can put on this when it comes to a prospect. You can’t teach it, but you have to have it.

Unfortunately for true students of the game, like Heeney, you don’t make an NFL roster from inside the film room and intangibles don’t tackle Marshawn Lynch on 3rd-and-short.

Heeney, however, is challenging the idea that he’s not cut-out athletically for the NFL. He surprised many as the Top Performer at his position in several measures at the 2015 NFL Combine according to NFL.com. He topped all inside linebackers in the 40-yard dash (4.59 seconds), three-cone drill (6.68 seconds) and both the 20-yard (4.00 seconds) and 60-yard shuttles (11.06 seconds).

It appears he sacrificed some strength, however, pushing only 19 reps on the bench press and weighing in at 231 pounds. Still, the results in the athletic drills look solid.

For the Chiefs, Heeney would provide a run-plugging inside linebacker who plays like his hair is on fire. Lack of effort is not a concern. He would likely make the Chiefs team as a special teamer and provide depth at inside linebacker, similar to Josh Mauga‘s role last season. He’s got some Mike Maslowski in him.

In a recent NFL Draft Diary entry for USA Today Sports, Heeney wrote that smaller, quicker linebackers definitely have a place in a currently pass-happy NFL. (Source of link: Tom Pelissero, USAToday.com)  He’s confident in his abilities, too:

"“I didn’t come from a background of a single-parent household. I didn’t grow up in poverty. I don’t have a story where it’s like, ‘Wow, this guy overcame so much.’ I’m just a guy that wakes up in the morning, and I want to be better than everybody else. I want to be the best that I can be.” – Ben Heeney"

If Heeney is available at the right price, he’s an ideal player to take a chance on.  You can never have too many players like him at the back-end of your 53-man roster.

Next: KC Chiefs Draft For Needs in Mock Draft

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