Kansas City, Mo. ? The Kansas City Chiefs traded defensive tackle Ryan Sims to Tampa Bay and released defensive end Eric Hicks on Tuesday, three days after taking defensive lineman Claude “Turk” McBride in the second round of the NFL draft.

The Chiefs will get a future draft pick from the Buccaneers in exchange for Sims, who has been an overweight, often-injured disappointment since they took him in the first round of the 2002 draft.

In five seasons, the 6-foot-4, 315-pound Sims appeared in 59 games with 36 starts. Over that span, he had 149 tackles – 79 unassisted – with five sacks, one interception, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.

Hicks, who made the Chiefs’ roster as an undrafted free agent out of Maryland in 1998, has appeared in 128 games with 104 starts over nine seasons.

He became a full-time starter in 1999, when he appeared in all 16 games for Kansas City, but has seen his role diminish in recent years with the emergence of Jared Allen and Tamba Hali.

Allen has been suspended by the NFL for the first four games next season, for two DUI convictions, and the decision to draft McBride – who can play inside or outside – followed the team’s vow after last season to start a youth movement.

Hicks ranks fifth in team history with 44.5 sacks, with a career-best 14 sacks in 2000.

He also ranks 12th in tackling with 574 – including 284 solo stops – with a single-season best of 118 tackles in 2003.

Hicks and his wife, Erica, have been especially active in charity work in the Kansas City area, founding the Hicks for Hearts Foundation in 2001 to assist families of children with congenital heart defects.

Their daughter, Shayla, was born in 1999 with a heart condition that required several operations.

“Eric has been an excellent football player for the Kansas City Chiefs and a superb representative of this organization in the community these past nine years,” Chiefs president and general manager Carl Peterson said in a statement announcing Hicks’ release. “Eric is one of the best college free agents that we have signed since ’89.”

Other releases and trades – such as the one that sent return man Dante Hall to St. Louis for a fifth-round draft pick – could follow. Coach Herm Edwards said after last season that the Chiefs could have as many as 20 new players this fall.