Kansas City, Mo. ? Even before they drafted Penn State’s Larry Johnson in the first round, the Kansas City Chiefs assured Priest Holmes he was still their starting running back.

Holmes, the NFL’s offensive player of the year in 2002, is still recovering from a season-ending hip injury that led to arthroscopic surgery last month.

“I talked to Priest this morning because I thought this could happen,” said Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil. “I didn’t want Priest to hear it from ESPN. I wanted him to hear it from me.”

A late-bloomer, Johnson rushed for 2,087 yards in his first season as a starter. He averaged 7.7 yards per carry for the Nittany Lions and led the nation in all-purpose yardage with 2,655 yards.

The Chiefs wound up with Johnson after swapping first-round picks with Pittsburgh. They gave the Steelers their first pick in the first round, No. 16 overall, for the 27th overall choice in round one. They also picked up a third- and sixth-round choice from the Steelers and were expected to use them for defense.

In the second round, Kansas City bypassed two better-known defensive players — Nebraska rush end Chris Kelsay and Kansas State linebacker Terry Pierce — to take South Florida linebacker Kawika Mitchell with the 47th pick overall.

The 6-foot, 253-pound Mitchell set a school record with 367 career tackles despite separating his shoulder in a car accident before his senior season.

His best performance last season came against South Florida’s toughest opponent when he recorded 12 tackles — including two sacks — two assists and a forced fumble against Oklahoma.

“That was a big-time game for me, and I took advantage of it,” said Mitchell, who transferred to South Florida — then an NCAA Division I-AA school — after taking a red-shirt his freshman season at Georgia. “Definitely the level of competition helped me out there — but I wouldn’t say that game made me.”

The Chiefs have insisted Holmes will be back to full speed by June. He missed the last two games of the 2002 season after he was injured at Denver, but still rushed for a team-record 1,615 yards.

“(Johnson) will be a great security blanket,” Vermeil said.

“To be honest with you, I was hoping to draft a defensive football player. But for the Kansas City Chiefs organization, and the value on the board, you couldn’t justify moving from where we had him rated to go get the defensive football player you wanted.

“Will he start? No. Priest Holmes is our starting running back. If Priest Holmes got hurt, then chances are he would be. But we have some other running backs here and we don’t know how good they are yet either.

Johnson said he did not want Holmes to think he was coming after his job.

“I want to first become a friend of Priest Holmes, then to have him comfortable with me and knowing the circumstances that I’m there, to learn from him, and know that I want to come in there and be a type of a backup or something like that,” Johnson said.

“I don’t want him to feel like I’m coming in to replace him because it’s something that even I couldn’t deal with.”

Ironically, Holmes lost his job in Baltimore under similar circumstances. He rushed for 1,098 yards in 1998, hurt his knee in 1999 and then the Ravens drafted running back Jamal Lewis in the first round in 2000.

Holmes immediately lost his job, and came to the Chiefs as a free agent in 2001.

“That won’t happen here,” Vermeil said.