Chiefs lined up to replace 1021-snap player from last season with 4th-round rookie originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The Kansas City Chiefs can look at the 2025 season as an example of what they don’t want to happen again.
To have a solid bounceback campaign in 2026, they’ll likely need to use some replacements for some of their weak links.
One of those weaker players was cornerback Chaamrri Conner. And yes, the Chiefs lost other CBs in the offseason, but they still might be better served playing Conner less than his 1,021 snaps from last season.
“Over the past two seasons, Conner has surrendered 0.11 EPA per target in the slot (11th worst among DBs with at least 50 slot targets) and a success rate of 53.8% — only 2025 rookie Jacob Parrish was worse,” ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote in a new article on Wednesday. “Conner simply does not make enough plays at the catch point to play a permanent coverage role.”
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The Chiefs drafted a player in the fourth round, Jadon Canady, who seems to make up for some of Conner’s shortcomings.
“Like Conner, Canady is a fourth-round pick who spent time at safety in the college ranks,” Solak writes. “But his best play was in the slot, where he finished his career at Oregon. Canady had 19 passes defensed combined over his last two years and will — along with free agent signing Kader Kohou — immediately challenge for the slot job.”
In Solak’s article, he goes on to speculate that Conner may not be benched entirely but instead spend more time at a safety position.
He likely wouldn’t be a starter on the back end either, though, and so it’s safe to assume that one way or another, the Chiefs will be finding more time for Conner on the sideline in the season ahead than they did during last year’s 6-11 campaign.