Despite generating plenty of pressure this season, the Kansas City Chiefs can always benefit from adding a defensive lineman into the fold. As the team awaits the potential return of Charles Omenihu from the physically unable to perform list, the sentiment is that help is on the way with the month of November on the horizon.
Could an external acquisition bolster the pass rush even more, though? As the 2024 NFL trade deadline gets closer and closer, general manager Brett Veach has already made one move by swapping for wideout DeAndre Hopkins. In a recent deadline primer, ESPN's Dan Graziano hinted at Kansas City exploring additional possibilities. If that ends up being the case, who makes sense for the back-to-back Super Bowl champs?
In the same article, analytics writer Seth Walder singled out Joshua Uche of the New England Patriots.
"Kansas City could use Uche to sub in for Mike Danna in passing situations and ought to get a lot more disruption as a result," Walder wrote. "Danna has a 4.4% pass rush win rate at edge, while Uche is off to a scorching start with a 24.1% pass rush win rate. Back in 2022, Uche had a 18.5% pressure rate -- the highest for any player in an entire season in ESPN's dataset (back to 2017). Uche is also cheap, which helps a lot in this case because Kansas City is tight against the salary cap."
Joshua Uche would be a low-cost add to round out a nice defensive line rotation
It's hard to argue with Walder's logic here. While Uche has failed to replicate his 11.5 sacks from 2022 (three last year in 15 games, two this year in seven games), he remains an intriguing pass rush threat. There are other – and sometimes better – ways to measure that. Although he's logged just one pressure in his last two contests and has 13 on the year, his Pro Football Focus pass rush grade of 72.7 ranks 31st among 183 edge players. That, combined with the aforementioned pass rush win rate, gives him a nice complementary profile along a defensive front.
There are also the matters of Uche's age and contract to consider. The former second-round pick is still just 26 years old, having celebrated his birthday shortly after the start of this season. He's on a very affordable one-year contract that contains some incentives but only $1.3M in base salary. With the Tennessee Titans reportedly absorbing $2.5M in the Hopkins trade, it'd make the cash-strapped Chiefs able to consider getting Uche on the books.
Raw box score numbers signal that Uche isn't what he once was. Advanced stats suggest that he's doing just fine. Even if the answer is somewhere in the middle, he's a very interesting player who defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and defensive line coach Joe Cullen could find a role for. Should the Patriots test the market for him, it'd be wise for Veach to at least make a quick call.
