Taken in the seventh round, new Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco was the 251st player selected in the 2022 NFL Draft.
By definition, he’s a long shot.
Seventh-rounders aren’t even guaranteed to make the 53-man roster. Just ask Kansas City’s 2021 fifth-round pick Cornell Powell, who spent his entire rookie season on the practice squad.
Still, when you hear Pacheco speak, you want to believe in him — mostly because you get a sense of what this opportunity means to him.
Nothing in Pacheco’s life has come easily. When he was a junior in high school, his older brother Tavaris was stabbed to death.