The Chiefs went into the offseason knowing exactly where they needed to get better: up front, next to Chris Jones. Brett Veach and Kansas City attacked that need from every angle, and by the time the dust settled, the defensive tackle room looked almost nothing like it did before. For a defense built around Steve Spagnuolo’s front, that kind of overhaul matters.
Jones remains the anchor, of course. He’s the face of the defense and a player the Chiefs view as a Hall of Fame lock, and he’s closing in on 90 career sacks.
That total should be reached this season, with triple digits likely coming before his career is over. At 32, Jones still gives Kansas City the kind of flexibility that makes the whole line work, lining up from 1-tech to 5-tech and setting the tone in the middle.
The biggest change around him comes from the new arrivals, and Peter Woods stands out as the most intriguing of the bunch. He entered the 2025 season with a reputation as a can’t-miss prospect and a consensus top-15 pick, but a rough year for Clemson sent his stock sliding.
Even so, his 2024 tape still showed a disruptive player, and in 2025 he was drawing constant double teams while looking even better against the run. The expectation in Kansas City is straightforward: a big rookie year and a fast climb toward stardom.
Omarr Norman-Lott gives the Chiefs another different kind of weapon. Kansas City’s 2025 second-round pick barely got on the field before an ACL tear ended his season after 73 snaps, but his profile has always been clear.
Coming out of Tennessee, he was one of the class’s best pass-rushing defensive tackles, with the explosiveness and finesse to get after quarterbacks. He’s thin, but he can win to the shoulder and knife into gaps in the run game, and the Chiefs are hoping a healthy 2026 lets them isolate him in one-on-one pass-rush situations as often as possible.
Then there’s Khyiris Tonga, the piece that should help clean up what was a shaky run defense in 2025. Tonga spent last season with the New England Patriots, the Super Bowl runner-up, and he doesn’t bring much in the way of flashy numbers.
What he does bring is real force against the run. His base is stout, his hands are violent, and he can absorb blocks while forcing backs to redirect at the last second.
Put him next to Jones, Woods and Norman-Lott, and Kansas City suddenly has a much more complete interior.
The depth chart also has a few names worth watching once camp opens. Damon Payne is one of the more interesting undrafted pickups, a former top-40 recruit who never put up big production at Alabama or Michigan. He’s a likely practice squad candidate, but the Chiefs will give him a real look in training camp and preseason, and a strong showing could push them to keep a fifth defensive tackle on the 2026 roster.
Marcus Harris is another practice-squad type to keep on the radar. He signed late in the 2025 season after stops with the Texans, Bills and Patriots, and the seventh-round pick from 2024 out of Auburn actually began his college career at Kansas, where he posted 7.5 sacks as a redshirt freshman and 31.5 for his career. He looks like the most likely candidate to land back on the practice squad.
Cole Brevard rounds out the group as the biggest body of the bunch. At 6-3 and 345 pounds, the Texas UDFA is exactly what his size suggests: a massive run defender who can hold his ground and eat blocks.
He offers little as a pass rusher, but the Chiefs are hoping he can develop into a rotational nose tackle. Like Payne, he’ll be fighting for a practice squad spot as the team sorts out its new-look interior line.
In Other News...
Travis Kelce Hit With Serious Off Field Twist At Brutal Time
Travis Kelces off-field calendar has been every bit as crowded as his football one, and now it includes a federal trademark fight tied to the Kansas City steakhouse he co-owns with Patrick Mahomes. The case centers on 1587 Prime, a name built around the pairs jersey numbers, and it has put the Chiefs star in the middle of a dispute with 1587 Sneakers over who gets to use that branding.
The timing adds another layer to an already awkward situation, with the legal back-and-forth arriving just as Kelces personal life has been in the spotlight for another reason. The sneaker company says the players can be sued in New York because of national advertising campaigns, while Kelce and Mahomes are pushing back on the case there, leaving the venue question as the next key wrinkle to watch. [Read more 🡒]
Sean Payton Nearly Pulled Off The Most Absurd Broncos Move Yet
Sean Payton has never been shy about thinking big in Denver, but a new report from ESPNs Seth Wickersham suggests one of his most audacious ideas never got past the drawing board. According to the report, Payton explored the possibility of bringing Bill Belichick to the Broncos in a temporary role, a strange arrangement built around Belichicks pursuit of the NFLs all-time coaching wins record before Payton would eventually step back in.
It is the kind of concept that sounds more like a late-night what-if than an actual staffing plan, and apparently it never advanced because it was simply too complicated. Still, it says plenty about the lengths some coaches will consider when legacy and history are in play, especially with Belichick now at North Carolina after his long run in New England. [Read more 🡒]
Travis Kelce Wedding Snub Has Chiefs Fans Eyeing One Friendship
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swifts wedding at Madison Square Garden was always going to draw a crowd, and the reported guest list lived up to the billing with roughly 1,000 people in attendance. The mix of celebrities and familiar football faces made it one of those events that quickly became a talking point well beyond the entertainment world, especially for Chiefs fans who follow every twist in Kelces off-field orbit as closely as they do his catches.
Will Comptons reaction has only added to the chatter around who made the cut and who did not, while Taylor Lewan also weighed in on the guest list and the possibility that some absences carried more meaning than others. For Kansas City, it is another reminder that Kelces personal life still has a way of spilling into the football conversation, and this latest round of speculation has people around the league looking hard at one friendship in particular. [Read more 🡒]