The Kansas City Chiefs leaned heavily on Steve Spagnoulo’s defense en route to a second consecutive Super Bowl championship last season and could add a major weapon to the venerable defensive coordinator’s arsenal before the 2024 campaign kicks off.
![Kansas City Chiefs Urged to Sign Pro Bowl Pass-Rusher with 69 Sacks 1 Steve Spagnuolo raved about Drue Tranquill after Nick Bolton went down to injury.](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Spags-and-Bolton.jpg)
Last season, the Chiefs finished second in the league in sacks, with 57.
However, given how impactful pass-rushers are to a team’s trajectory, Kansas City could look to add an affordable veteran presence off the edge.
Yannick Ngakoue could be an ideal scheme fit, and remains available despite posting 69 career sacks with one Pro Bowl appearance already on his resumè.
“I just hope that I’m somewhere before training camp starts because everyone needs to go through a training camp in order to have the kind of season they want to have,” Ngakoue recently told SiriusXM NFL Radio. “It’s just like a boxer at the end of the day. If you don’t have a proper training camp, you can go into the ring and get knocked out. So it’s all about preparation.”
Would Yannick Ngakoue Fit the Kansas City Chiefs?
![Kansas City Chiefs Urged to Sign Pro Bowl Pass-Rusher with 69 Sacks 2 Kansas City Chiefs, Yannick Ngakoue](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/yannick-and-pat-1024x683.jpg)
Ngakoue seems to have entered the journeyman veteran phase of his career, playing for six different teams over the past five seasons. But, he has shown flashes that he can still be productive, especially in a rotational role where he isn’t tasked with being a disruptive force on every down.
Bleacher Report’s Alex Ballentine put together a list of the best remaining free agents under 30 years old, with Ngakoue named an ideal fit to sign with the Chiefs.
“Ngakoue has been a productive pass-rusher throughout his career,” Ballentine writes for B/R. “But a non-factor in the run game. At 6’2”, 246 pounds, he doesn’t set a firm edge, and he’s only had more than 30 tackles in a season once.
“Still, the ability to rush the passer is always in demand, and he can do it at a reasonably high level. He had only four sacks while playing 72 percent of the Chicago Bears’ defensive snaps this season, but he had a pressure rate of 11.0 percent, which topped his 10.6 percent rate with the Colts in 2022.”
While Ngakoue’s production dipped with the Bears, the 29-year-old is just a year removed from a 9.5 sack season with the Indianapolis Colts, in 2022, which may be a clearer indicator of what he is still capable of in the right scheme and role.
![Kansas City Chiefs Urged to Sign Pro Bowl Pass-Rusher with 69 Sacks 3 Kansas City Chiefs, Yannick Ngakoue](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/USATSI_21893591_168400517_lowres-e1703128143165-1024x871.jpg)
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