KC Chiefs: Grading the 2014 Draft

Round Three: Phillip Gaines

Grade: B-

The Chiefs forfeited their second pick in the draft to finalize the deal that sent Alex Smith to Kansas City. While losing that draft pick didn’t benefit the San Francisco 49ers too much, the Chiefs did lose out on some players that have proven to be play makers. Kony Ealy, Allen Robinson, and Jarvis Landry were all taken in the second round after the Chiefs’ “would be” pick.

The Chiefs’ made up for this by drafting a solid player in the third round. Phillip Gaines was a little known corner back coming out of Rice University. He had some big shoes to fill with Brandon Flowers on his way out.

Gaines is not the corner back that Marcus Peters is, but at six feet tall, he is the big corner that John Dorsey likes.

Gaines is not the corner back that Marcus Peters is, but at six feet tall, he is the big corner that John Dorsey likes. For a rookie corner back, one of the NFL’s toughest positions, he did fairly well at the NFL level.

In a team that wound up losing it’s leader in the defensive backfield, Eric Berry, Gaines had to step up in a big way. He totaled 20 tackles and defended four passes. That’s not great, especially in comparison to Peters’ rookie year, but he only started five games in 2014.

Gaines is an adequate corner back and is going to be a decent “swing man” when it comes to playing corner. He’s good enough that you could plug him in to give someone a breather or play him as a nickle back and not get beat.

He missed 2015 with an ACL injury which is unfortunate given the promise he showed as a rookie. It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to get comfortable making his cuts and how long it takes him to get back up to speed. He’ll likely never be an ‘A’ grade player, but for a third-round corner back, a ‘B-‘ will be good enough.

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