The Kansas City Chiefs suffered several losses in their secondary recently, and they've signed Kader Kohou at corner.
The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a wave of departures in their young secondary due to departures in free agency and the recent Trent McDuffie trade, but yesterday they made another move to counter those losses by signing cornerback Kader Kohou, with the transaction reported by Nikhil Mehta of ProFootballRumors.com via NFL insider Jordan Schultz.
Kohou’s NFL resume includes three seasons as the nickel back for the Miami Dolphins, but he missed all of last season with a torn ACL he suffered in Dolphins’ training camp. Before that he logged 47 appearances, 38 starts and over 2,500 defensive snaps in Miami, according to Mehta, and he excelled in his rookie season. The Chiefs are hoping he can replicate that kind of durability as part of this signing.
Kohou was an undrafted free agent who played collegiately at Texas A&M-Commerce, but he allowed jus 6.1 yards per target and three touchdowns in 2023. After that he regressed to 7.7 yards allowed in 2023, but he rebounded to duplicate his rookie numbers in 2024 according to Mehta, which earned him $3.26 million last year after Miami hit him with the restricted free agent tag. He’ll almost certainly make less money with the Chiefs this year due to his injury.
The Chiefs secondary now has plenty of openings. Jaylen Watson also left in free agency to join McDuffie in the Rams secondary at cornerback, and Joshua Williams, who played key snaps at the position, is also gone. It’s a total overhaul of the secondary in Kansas City with the Chiefs signing safety Alohi Gilman to compensate for the loss of Bryan Cook, but Kohou will have to compete for a job.
His primary competition will come from Chamarri Conner, according to Mehta, who pointed out that Kohou played most of his snaps in as a slot corner. Conner was a fourth-round pick in 2023, and he played 743 snaps on the boundary, so the puzzle pieces sort of fit, but it’s unclear at this point what the secondary will look like.
It will be different, though, and defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo will have a long to-do list in training camp to get the secondary figured out. GM Brett Veach said at the recent NFL combine that strengthening the pass rush is a major priority this offseason, but to date the Chiefs haven’t made any major moves to upgrade there. Kansas City now has plenty of draft capital to throw at this problem, and a trade is possible as well.