The Kansas City Chiefs selected Tennessee defensive tackle Omarr Norman-Lott with the 63rd pick of the NFL Draft.

I previously analyzed Norman-Lott’s game in our On the Draft Board series and was pleasantly surprised when I viewed his film.

The big knock on Norman-Lott was that he had played only a small percentage of the team’s snaps during his two seasons in Rocky Top, but the snaps he did play showed a powerful and explosive player.

Norman-Lott’s lack of snaps at Tennessee can also be attributed to the rotation-heavy looks that Tennessee deploys to keep players fresh through a long season.

Here are a few ways the Chiefs will use him in 2025:

Interior pass rusher

The obvious spot for Norman-Lott to start to contribute first will be as an interior pass rusher. During the free agency period, the Chiefs lost Tershawn Wharton, who signed an expensive deal with the Carolina Panthers. Wharton was second on the team with 6.5 sacks during the regular season and two in the playoffs.

While not a starter for the Chiefs, Wharton played 62% of defensive snaps last season and was a key contributor as a penetrator in the backfield and pass rush specialist.

Norman-Lott and Wharton aren’t parallel players, but they are very similar.

Both players use a good first step off the ball and solid leverage to create plays. Wharton is a better athlete and quicker overall, but Norman-Lott has more power and is more advanced with his hands than Wharton was coming out of college.

It is a passing league, and these are the traits that made Norman-Lott attractive to the Chiefs’ scouts in the first place.

The Chiefs primarily play a base 4-2 defense, with multiple 4-3 looks thrown in, depending on the situation. It is most likely that Norman-Lott will rotate across multiple spots along the line. He has the size to line up as a 1-technique, 3-technique, 4i-technique, as well as head up against any player along the interior offensive line in a given situation.

Positional versatility is critical on the Chiefs’ defensive line, and the particular alignment on any given play can often be based on where they decide to line up Chris Jones.

One of the most dominant defensive linemen of this generation, Jones alters game plans, and the attention he receives can create one-on-one chances for his teammates.

This is where Wharton thrived in the Chiefs’ defense, and where players like Charles Omenihu, Mike Danna and George Karlaftis also benefit. Unlike Omenihu, Danna, and Karlaftis and Norman-Lott will only play inside snaps, but on pass rush downs when Jones is also aligned to the inside, this will almost certainly set up chances for him to win against solo blockers.

It is also highly possible that on snaps where Jones lines up to the outside, the team puts Norman-Lott beside him and lets him rush from the 3-technique spot, which is his natural position.

With the creativity of Steve Spagnuolo and under the tutelage of Joe Cullen, Norman-Lott will have a tremendous opportunity to be a productive player early on in Kansas City.

Stopping the run

Perhaps the most underrated part of Norman-Lott’s game is his run defense. Although he was primarily used as a pass rusher at Tennessee, Norman-Lott is strong at the point of attack but can also use his explosion off the line to create quick penetration, much like Wharton did.

Wharton used his powerful base to outleverage interior blockers and create disruption in the backfield before running backs had a chance to make their reads, and Norman-Lott showed the same tendencies in college.

With the Chiefs’ array of fronts and lineups, there will be plenty of opportunities for Norman-Lott to be the “penetrator” and create chaos in the backfield.

A constant theme of the Chiefs’ defense is “block destruction,” which Spagnuolo references frequently in terms of stopping running plays. With his power and base, Norman-Lott could also turn into a quality run defender for the Chiefs, and might even have the strength to fill some aspects of Derrick Nnadi’s role from the past few seasons.

The bottom line

By adding Norman-Lott, the Chiefs have a chance to check two boxes, but also have a more well-rounded player on the field. Wharton was a good pass rush down player, but due to his lack of size, he could sometimes give up ground in the run game against double teams.

Nnadi, on the other hand, who was more of a run stopper, provided little value in the pass rush, which limited his snaps toward the end of his time in Kansas City.

Norman-Lott will allow the coaching staff to make fewer substitutions based on down and distance by giving them a player who is strong enough to hold up against the run and athletic enough to rush the passer.

There will still be plenty of rotation, but relying less on the scheme and more on on-field talent.

Norman-Lott will also give the team a chance to find pass rush help on plays when Jones is not on the field. Jones played a career-high 83% of defensive snaps in 2024, but at 30 years old, he is in a position where the team needs to be more conscious of his snap count and save his best for when the games matter the most. His impact will be less than that of a future Hall of Fame candidate, but with the rest of the supporting cast, his play should be sufficient to make an impact.

Lott is an older prospect, and at 23 years old, the Chiefs need a player who will be ready to go from the jump. He will receive plenty of opportunities as a rookie to prove his worth and show that his role in college was a reflection of the system he played in, not a reflection of his game.