The Kansas City Chiefs added some interesting free agents, with a safety being the favorite and a RB the least.
A lot of grades are coming out about every team’s recent free agent moves, and the Kansas City Chiefs are no exception. One rating system that was a little different, though, was that of Pro Football Focus, as Zoltan Buday picked his favorite move along with his least favorite.
One was quite surprising, as Buday chose the addition of safety Aloha Gilman as his favorite move. The addition comes amidst a lot of turnover in the Chiefs secondary, but the writer claims that “Gilman’s presence as a deep safety raises the floor of what the unit can achieve.”
It’s an intriguing take based in large part on PFF’s elaborate grading system. His coverage grade in 2025 ranked 21st among safeties last season, despite the fact that Gilman played for two teams during the season. It’s worth noting, however, that the midseason move from the Los Angeles Chargers to the Baltimore Ravens might have been due to issues with the Chargers that remain unrevealed given that PFF mentioned his penchant to miss tackles occasionally.
Nonetheless, it does take the Chiefs in a different direction. The Chiefs have established a reputation for developing tough, physical corners and safeties, but those same players often struggled in coverage, especially when the pass rush didn’t get home. The hope is that Gilman will stabilize things in the back end, but raising the ceiling of the secondary could be overly optimistic.
Buday’s least favorite move was less surprising, as he selected the addition of Kenneth Walker III. His issues weren’t necessarily about Walker’s huge contract, though, which was at least somewhat unusual.
Walker did rank among the top ten running backs in the league in both 2023 and 2024, but Buday raised a different issue that hasn’t been discussed much—durability.
He made some good points, too. Walker hasn’t topped 500 regular-season snaps in any of the past three seasons, according to Buday, and during his four seasons with the Seattle Seahawk he ranked just 17th in total snaps with 2,038.
That makes the contract issue loom even larger. As Buday points out, if Walker can replicate his level of play as a bell-cow running back, he’ll be worth every penny. If he’s on the shelf for any amount of time, though, losing him could be costly, especially given the Chiefs’ abysmal record in one-score games last season.
One of Walker’s primary roles will be to help Kansas City control the clock when the Chiefs get a lead late in games, and the Chiefs really don’t have any other options to do that right now.