The Chiefs don’t have a second-round draft pick, having sent theirs to the 49ers for Alex Smith. So if they’re going to trade offensive tackle Branden Albert, the Chiefs want to get a second-round pick back.
But they want more than just that.
The Chiefs will seek a second-round pick in this year’s draft as well as another pick in 2014 in a trade for Albert, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. We don’t yet know what that other pick in 2014 would be, but it could be a conditional pick designed to replace the conditional 2014 pick the Chiefs gave up for Smith.
After Albert signed his franchise tag, he became eligible to be traded. A team that trades for him would owe him the same one-year contract with a guaranteed base salary of $9.828 million that the Chiefs will owe him if he plays the 2013 season on the franchise tender, although it’s highly unlikely that a team would trade for Albert without first working out an agreement on a long-term contract.
Kansas City is widely believed to be leaning toward drafting a left tackle with the first overall pick in next month’s draft. If they trade Albert, we can already pencil in Luke Joeckel of Texas A&M or Eric Fisher of Central Michigan as his replacement.