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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Sport
Sam Mcdowell

Chiefs are doing due diligence on receivers. Here's what we know about their interest.

INDIANAPOLIS _ The tape started rolling a day after the parade marched through downtown Kansas City, with Chiefs front office personnel turning their full attention toward 2020 and, more specifically, its NFL Draft class.

As the group moved to examination of available wide receivers, watching film of one player after another, general manager Brett Veach turned to the rest of the room.

"When are we going to see a guy we don't like?" Veach asked, recalling the story this week at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

Ahead of a draft that sparks annual debate, arguments and counterarguments, there's a general consensus about two things regarding the 2020 iteration.

The pool of prospects converging in Indianapolis for the combine this week is deeper than most.

And nowhere is that more obvious than in this class of wide receivers.

"Here's what I'll tell you _ the average over the last five years for wide receivers going in the first three rounds is between 12 and 13 a year. You can easily make an argument, from a grade perspective, that there are 20-25 of those guys out there this year," Raiders general manager Mike Mayock said.

"Do I think it's a special receiver draft? Yeah, I think there's a lot of depth at the wide receiver position," Colts general manager and former Chiefs executive Chris Ballard added.

At the very least, the Chiefs are doing their due diligence with college prospects at the position.

Incumbent Demarcus Robinson, who started 10 games in 2019, is a free agent. The Chiefs will ask Sammy Watkins to restructure a deal in line to pay him $21 million in 2020, with that dialogue expected to begin this week.

That leaves questions at the position. Watkins and Robinson could still offer the answers. But so could the draft.

The Chiefs have spoken to several receivers throughout the week, The Star has learned, some in formal meetings and others in informal settings. Per league rules, each team is allowed to conduct 45 formal interviews that span exactly 18 minutes each. An informal meeting could be as brief as a conversation in the hallway of the convention center.

A handful of the top receivers are near-locks to be off the board by the time the Chiefs draft at No. 32 in late April, barring a trade _ among them, Oklahoma's CeeDee Lamb and Alabama's Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs. Others could be gone, too, though that's less certain.

The situations with Robinson and Watkins should become clearer before the draft hits in April. But if those outcomes prompt the Chiefs to spend an early-round pick on a wide receiver, here are some players they could target in the first two rounds _ and some they've already spoken to here at the scouting combine.

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