{"id":73225,"date":"2025-06-26T06:31:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=73225"},"modified":"2025-06-26T06:33:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:33:34","slug":"nfl-draft-history-suggests-the-chiefs-mightve-nailed-their-nohl-williams-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=73225","title":{"rendered":"NFL Draft history suggests the Chiefs might\u2019ve nailed their Nohl Williams pick"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
The Kansas City Chiefs selected California\u2019s Nohl Williams with the 85th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Williams had a strong college career and was a well-regarded prospect heading into the draft. Given the Chiefs’ reputation for developing cornerbacks like Charvarius Ward and Jaylen Watson, many are excited about Williams\u2019 potential in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
But what does recent draft history tell us about the success rate of cornerbacks taken in this part of the draft?<\/p>\n
This month, I\u2019ve been reviewing all of Kansas City\u2019s draft picks to examine the historical hit rates for players at the same position taken around the same spot. You can check out the results from the first three below, if you haven\u2019t already:<\/p>\n
To find the hit rate for cornerbacks taken in a similar range as Nohl Williams, I looked at the ten draft classes from 2014 to 2023. Since it’s too early to judge the 2024 class, this gave me a solid, recent ten-year sample. I then focused on cornerbacks selected between picks 75 and 95\u2014a 21-pick span that captures the 10 picks before and after where Williams was taken.<\/p>\n
From that range, I found 22 cornerbacks drafted. Here are the players, year by year:<\/p>\n
2014<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n
\n
Dexter McDougal – New York Jets – pick 80<\/li>\n
Phillip Gaines – Kansas City Chiefs – pick 87<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2015<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n
\n
P.J. Williams – New Orleans Saints – pick 78<\/li>\n
Alex Carter – Detroit Lions – pick 80<\/li>\n
Craig Mager – San Diego Chargers – pick 83<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In my previous three hit rate breakdowns, I grouped players into two categories: “hits” and “busts.” But since we\u2019re now in a portion of the draft where hit rates are traditionally lower, I wanted to offer more nuance. For this post, I\u2019ve used three categories:<\/p>\n
\n
Miss<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Players who didn\u2019t stick in the league or failed to carve out a meaningful role<\/li>\n
NFL Contributor\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 Depth corners who may have started occasionally or played consistently on special teams<\/li>\n
Starter<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Players who started for multiple seasons, even if not at a high level<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Here is how I divided the 22 corners into those three categories:<\/p>\n
Misses (45.4%)<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n
\n
Dexter McDougal<\/li>\n
Phllip Gaines<\/li>\n
Craig Mager<\/li>\n
Brandon Williams<\/li>\n
Rashaan Gaulden<\/li>\n
David Long<\/li>\n
Justin Layne<\/li>\n
Cameron Dantzler<\/li>\n
Michael Ojemunda<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
NFL Contributors (18.2%)<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n
\n
P.J. Williams<\/li>\n
Daryl Worley<\/li>\n
Cordale Flott<\/li>\n
Marcus Jones<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Starters (36.4%)<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n
\n
Kendall Fuller<\/li>\n
Fabian Moreau<\/li>\n
Shaquill Griffin<\/li>\n
Jourdan Lewis<\/li>\n
Cameron Sutton<\/li>\n
Jamel Dean<\/li>\n
Paulson Adebo<\/li>\n
Riley Moss<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
A few things stand out to me here. First, the most likely outcome based on this data is that Nohl Williams will be a miss. That\u2019s simply the most common result. However, it\u2019s also notable that there were twice as many starters as role players. In other words, players taken in this range tend to either become starters or miss entirely. Yes, a few became contributors, but 81.8% either made it as regular starters or didn\u2019t make it at all.<\/p>\n
The second thing worth highlighting is that the 36.4% hit rate for starters is significantly higher than the typical success rate for players taken in this range, which usually hovers around 20\u201330%, depending on how you define success. If you include contributors as hits, the success rate rises to 54.6 percent, basically double the average for this portion of the draft.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that the list of starters taken in this range of the draft isn’t exactly a who’s who of elite NFL corners, so even if Nohl Williams adds his name to the list of players drafted in this range that went on to be regular starters in the NFL, Chiefs fans shouldn’t expect elite All-Pro level play.<\/p>\n
Still, when you factor in Steve Spagnuolo and Dave Merritt’s success at developing corners as well as the above-average success of corners drafted in this range becoming starters, the Chiefs have to be encouraged about Williams’ chances.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kansas City Chiefs selected California\u2019s Nohl Williams with the 85th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Williams had a strong college career and was a well-regarde<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":73228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n
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