The Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Giants completed a late-night swap Tuesday, with Kansas City acquiring guard Josh Ezeudu for a 2028 seventh-round pick, per NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo. Ezeudu, 26, was a third-round pick of the Giants in 2022, and he started 10 games for the Giants, split between guard and tackle, from 2022-24. He missed all of last year due to injury, but he returned to New York on a one-year deal this offseason.
Instead, he'll head to Kansas City, where he figures to provide versatile depth. Here's how both teams fared in the swap. It's a pretty simple calculation for Kansas City.
The team needed offensive line depth, and identified it -- at a cheap price -- in Ezeudu. The Chiefs have done a really good job developing talent along their offensive line for quite a bit, and Ezeudu could be next in line. He's a former top-70 pick who, according to Pro Football Focus, graded out decently in limited snaps in 2024 after a rough first two seasons.
If he's playing significant snaps for you, you're not in a good spot. But for a few drives here or there, in a pinch, he can be passable. The slight ding on the Chiefs here is that they had to give up anything for a depth piece late in camp -- they were already playing from behind.
After starting guards Trey Smith and Kingsley Suamataia, the Chiefs only had veteran Mike Caliendo, C.J. Hanson (four career games) and UDFA Josh Thompson. Ezeudu provides a nice boost there, and his versatility helps, but the Chiefs probably could have and should have taken care of this earlier.
Seventh-round picks aren't much, but they're not nothing. Kansas City has had plenty of late-round success before. If Ezeudu wasn't going to make the roster -- and, based on this deal, he wasn't -- the Giants did a nice job here getting anything just days before roster cut day.
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