List of Kansas City Chiefs first-round draft picks

The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference West Division.^[6] The team was founded in 1959 as the Dallas Texans by businessman Lamar Hunt, and was a charter member of the American Football League (AFL).^[7][8][9] In spring 1963, the team relocated to Kansas City, and assumed its current name.^[7][8][10] The Chiefs joined the NFL prior to the 1970 season as a result of the AFL–NFL merger.^[11][12][13]

The NFL draft, officially known as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting",^[14][15][16] is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment.^[17] The draft order is determined based on the previous season's standings; the teams with the worst win–loss records receive the earliest picks. Teams that qualified for the NFL playoffs select after non-qualifiers, and their order depends on how far they advanced, using their regular season record as a tie-breaker. The final two selections in the first round are reserved for the Super Bowl runner-up and champion. Draft picks are tradable and players or other picks can be acquired with them.^[18]

Before the merger agreements in 1966, the AFL directly competed with the NFL and held a separate draft. This led to a bidding war over top prospects between the two leagues, along with the subsequent drafting of the same player in each draft. As part of the merger agreement on June 8, 1966, the two leagues began holding a multiple round "common draft". Once the AFL officially merged with the NFL in 1970, the "common draft" simply became the NFL draft.^[19][20][21] The first AFL draft was held prior to the start of the 1960 season. The first round of the 1960 AFL draft was territorial selections. Each team received a "territorial pick" which allowed them to select a single player within a pre-agreed upon designated region (the team's "territory"). Teams then agreed on the top eight players at each position, who were subsequently assigned to teams by random draw, with each of the eight teams receiving one of those players. This process was repeated until all 53 roster spots were filled.^[22] Beginning in the 1961 draft, the AFL, using the same system as the NFL, began to assign picks based on the previous season's standings.^[23]

Since the team's first draft, the Chiefs have selected 61 players in the first round.^[24] The team's first-round pick in the inaugural AFL draft was Don Meredith, a quarterback out of Southern Methodist University (SMU); he was the team's territorial selection.^[22][25] The Chiefs have held the first overall pick twice, once in the AFL draft, selecting Buck Buchanan in 1963, and once in the NFL draft, selecting Eric Fisher in 2013.^[24] In the most recent draft, held in 2024, the Chiefs selected Texas wide receiver Xavier Worthy.^[26]

The Chiefs did not draft a player in the first round on nine occasions. Four of the team's first-round picks—Buck Buchanan, Tony Gonzalez, Gale Sayers, and Derrick Thomas—have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame;^[27][28] one of these, Sayers, chose not to play for the Chiefs and joined the NFL instead.^[29] The Chiefs used additional first-round picks in the 1960s to select Don Meredith and Ronnie Bull, who also chose to sign with the NFL instead.^[30][31]