The Kansas City Chiefs will be heading to their seventh straight AFC Championship Game on the back of a stellar three-sack performance from former Purdue Boilermakers pass rusher George Karlaftis.
How George Karlaftis Made it to the NFL
While the headlines will focus on Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid following the Chiefs’ 23-14 win over the Houston Texans on Saturday afternoon, it was pass rusher Karlaftis who stole the show with a three-sack, three-tackle for loss in one of the most dominant defensive displays you’ll see in the NFL Playoffs. The standout at Purdue is making his presence known on the biggest stage.
George Karlaftis takes down Stroud for a turnover on downs!
📺: #HOUvsKC on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/VWKVvzdD5e— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2025
Karlaftis’ football journey has been anything but ordinary. Originally born and raised in Athens, Greece, he was a multisport athlete playing track and field, basketball, water polo, and football. The Grecian Goliath ultimately chose to pursue football, making the long journey from Athens to West Lafayette after committing to play for for Purdue.
Entering Purdue, Karlaftis showed a lot of promise; he possessed the quickness, strength, and vision to be a great pass rusher. However he needed to improve his strength as a run defender and struggled against downhill runs.
With all that being said, Karlaftis’ first season was productive, recording 54 total tackles (30 of which were solo tackles), 17 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks, and an interception. His sophomore season, however, was cut short due to testing positive for Covid-19. He only recorded 4 tackles and 2 sacks on the season.
Yet, his final season at Purdue was a bounce-back season, finishing with 41 tackles (31 of which were solo tackles), 12 tackles for loss, and five sacks.
Karlaftis entered the 2022 NFL Draft with a fair amount of questions about his stock.
He had a great motor, a good arm over move, and had a feel for chasing down quarterbacks and running backs behind the line of scrimmage to go along with the same speed and strength. However he didn’t have stats that stood out from the other pass rushers in his class such as Travon Walker, Aiden Hutchinson, Nik Bonitto and Kayvon Thibodeaux.
Nonetheless it was enough for Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach to select him in the first round. Karlaftis quickly began to earn praise from Kansas City head coach Reid.
“He goes 100 miles an hour,” Reid said of Karlaftis in 2022 training camp. “Walk-throughs, everything.”
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Karlaftis met every expectation when he was drafted, and he has emerged as a key contributor on a back-to-back championship defense. His three-sack performance puts him in the company of great Chiefs like Derrick Thomas, Tamba Hali, and current teammate Chris Jones.
Karlaftis will look to continue his great run of form if the Chiefs are going to have a chance at making history by becoming the first ever NFL team to three-peat as Super Bowl champions.
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