The Houston Texans are visiting a free agent that the Chiefs are expected to welcome

This argument has been made many times before, here and elsewhere in the Kingdom of Chiefs.

On Sunday, NFL reporter Aaron Wilson noted that the Houston Texans are working on free agent Cam Akers as the team prepares to assemble its full roster for this year’s training camp.

Akers is a bit of a mixed bag at this point, a player who has suffered multiple major injuries during his short stint in the National Football League, forcing his employers to stop depending on him despite being drafted as recently as 2020. After playing just one game in his sophomore season and seven more last year, his durability record isn’t all that stellar.

That said, Akers is only 25 years old and entered the league as a second-round pick of the LA Rams because of his high potential and ideal fit with today’s modern passing attacks. He’s also proven that he can come back and be productive after working hard to recover. In 2022, he rushed for 786 yards and 7 touchdowns in 15 games as a member of the Rams’ RB committee, just a year after a torn Achilles tendon.

For the Texans, the team has already remade the position this offseason with the acquisition of Joe Mixon from the Cincinnati Bengals, who will be supplanted by Dameon Pearce when he needs a rest. Jawhar Jordan was selected in the sixth round of this year’s draft and other contenders include Dare Ogunbowale and JJ Taylor.

The Chiefs have the top of the depth chart covered like Houston with Isiah Pacheco and Clyde Edwards-Helaire waiting in the wings, but the loss of Jerick McKinnon in free agency (who is still available, by the way) leaves the Chiefs too young and too thin at a key position, especially for a team expected to play around 20 games this season.

Akers is the kind of low-risk, one-year draft pick (a la Hollywood Brown among receivers) that Brett Veach should pursue in hopes of finding disproportionate value down the road. Players like Emani Bailey, Deneric Prince, Hassan Hall and others aren’t enough to shake things up when decent options like Akers are still looking for a home.

Again, no one expects Akers to step in and shoulder a major load, but the Chiefs Kingdom have seen firsthand how many injuries the team can expect to see in the backfield. Pacheco himself has had multiple surgeries in a given year. It makes more sense to draft a more experienced player with solid upside than to go after fringe players this early in camp.