The Kansas City Chiefs selected Notre Dame cornerback Keivarae Russell with the No. 74 overall pick in the third round of the NFL draft on Friday.
The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Russell is a graduate of Mariner High School in Everett.
After the Chiefs sent the No. 59 overall choice to Tampa Bay, they used their new third-round pick on Russell, who should compete for a starting spot alongside defensive rookie of the year Marcus Peters.
The Chiefs lost veteran Sean Smith in free agency. Phillip Gaines is the presumptive starter, but he is coming off an ACL injury. Steven Nelson played nickel last year and could factor into the race.
“I didn’t know what team I was going to go to, then when (my family saw the team was Kansas City, they went crazy,” Russell said. “They showed a lot of interest at my pro day but not after that.”
Russell was a standout freshman for the Fighting Irish and started all 13 games as a sophomore, but he missed the following season for violating the school’s honor code. He owned up to his mistakes and went to a junior college rather than transferring, then returned to Notre Dame in good academic standing.
Now, he’s close to becoming the first from his family to graduate from college.
“Obviously there was a time I was stuck in a deep, dark place. You think about what you did wrong, how it will affect your future,” he said. “I made a mistake but I did everything right going forward.”
Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said earlier in the night that character was an important consideration in selecting players, particularly after the Thursday night saga involving Ole Miss’s Laremy Tunsil.
“You want to have as many high-character guys in your locker room as possible,” Hunt said. “Not everybody is going to be the kind of leader that you would like, that you draft, but certainly you want the majority of your players to act like that.”
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