Kansas City Chiefs: Revisiting the 2015 NFL Draft

None of the nine players who the Kansas City Chiefs selected in the 2015 NFL Draft are still with the team six years later.

Following year two with Andy Reid as their head coach, the Kansas City Chiefs went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. This would be the first and last time they wouldn’t qualify for the postseason with Reid as their coach and it was only the last time the team didn’t win double-digit games. Unreal.

Anyway, the Chiefs held the No. 18 pick in the 2015 NFL Draft and had several different directions they could go in with the pick. They also had eight other draft picks at their disposal and this is how the 2015 NFL Draft played out for the Chiefs:

No. 18 – Marcus Peters, CB (Washington)
No. 49 – Mitch Morse, OL (Missouri)
No. 76 – Chris Conley, WR (Georgia)
No. 98 – Steven Nelson, CB (Oregon State)
No. 118 – Ramik Wilson, IDL (Georgia)
No. 172 – D.J. Alexander, LB (Oregon State)
No. 173 – James O’Shaughnessy, TE (Illinois State)
No. 217 – Rakeem Nunez-Roches, DT (Southern Mississippi)
No. 233 – Da’Ron Brown, WR (Northern Illinois)

Nine players joined the Kansas City Chiefs through the 2015 NFL Draft.

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Aside from Brown, this is a pretty solid group of players even if none of them are still in Kansas City. All but Wilson, Alexander, and Brown played in the league in 2020 and Nunez-Roches won a Super Bowl against the team that drafted him.

We all know Peters’ story. He was a hot-headed cornerback who was cut from Washington’s team before the draft and people were shocked that he was who the Chiefs went with in the first round, mostly due to his attitude problems. Peters spent just three seasons with the Chiefs before they traded him to the Rams. He’s currently with Baltimore.

Morse was another player that many people felt the Chiefs reached on in this draft but he was a nice versatile option along the offensive line. Kansas City used him predominantly as a center and he took his talents to Buffalo after his rookie contract expired.

Conley was another strange pick and never became what the Chiefs were hoping for. He was the recipient of that crazy touchdown pass Patrick Mahomes had during the 2018 season but other than that, there weren’t many great memories of Conley in Kansas City. He played for Jacksonville the past two years and signed with Houston this offseason.

Nelson wasn’t anything special and moved onto Pittsburgh after his contract expired. He’s not a fan of Kansas City or the Chiefs organization and he’s made that widely known on social media.

Wilson was with the Chiefs for three years before playing for the Rams and Cardinals. He had 76 tackles for the Chiefs in 2016 but never was able to stick with the team who drafted him. He didn’t play in an NFL game in 2020.

Alexander was a special teams contributor who the Chiefs traded to Seattle in July 2017. Alexander only played for the Seahawks for a year, then jumped to the Eagles in 2018, and the Jaguars in 2019. He did not play in an NFL game in 2020.

O’Shaughnessy spent just two years with the Chiefs and never blossomed into much. The Chiefs traded him to New England following the 2016 season but he never played in a game with them. He had all of his success with the Jaguars where he caught 80 receptions for 778 yards and three touchdowns through four seasons.

Nunez-Roches was one of my favorites during his time in Kansas City. He was referred to as “Nacho” and really looked to be a valuable depth piece on defense for this team during that time. After three years in KC, he locked on with the Buccaneers and was on their Super Bowl-winning team this past year. He’s been a nice story for sure.

Brown was the one player from the Chiefs’ 2015 draft class who didn’t do anything. He was in the organization through 2016 and jumped around with a few teams after that but never made it into an NFL game. That’s not uncommon for a seventh-round pick.

This is one of the Kansas City Chiefs’ better draft classes but a lot of the players in this bunch have made bigger names of themselves with other teams.

Next. Chiefs 7-Round Mock Draft After Trading for Orlando Brown. dark

What thoughts do you have on the Chiefs’ 2015 NFL Draft class?

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