Chiefs first-round pick Glenn Dorsey holds up a jersey after being selected fifth overall. Dorsey was the first of Kansas City's two first-round picks Saturday in New York.

Kansas City, Mo. ? The Kansas City Chiefs started their big draft with big men.

First, they used the fifth overall selection to grab Glenn Dorsey, a 297-pound All-America defensive lineman who helped lead LSU to the national championship.

Then, making yet another trade, they swapped their 17th pick of the first round to Detroit to inch upward two spots and take Virginia offensive lineman Branden Albert, a 316-pounder who can play both tackle and guard.

In the second round, they took aim at a third glaring weakness on a team that finished with a nine-game losing streak and made Virginia Tech cornerback Brandon Flowers the 35th player taken overall.

Besides two slots in the first round, the Detroit trade appeared to cost little. They swapped third-round picks with the Lions, going from the overall 66th player to the 76th, and gave Detroit the extra fifth-round choice they received from Miami as compensation for Trent Green.

“The key to me is we got both players,” a beaming Bill Kuharich, the vice president for player personnel, said of the first-round picks. “I never thought in my wildest dreams we’d get the opportunity to get both of those.”

The minute Dorsey was drafted, the Chiefs began moving people around on a defensive line which was weakened considerably by the trade of All-Pro defensive end Jared Allen to Minnesota.

Coach Herm Edwards said Allen’s spot at right end will be taken by Tamba Hali and veteran tackle Alfonso Boone will shift from tackle to left defensive end.

“We have a lot of different combinations all of a sudden with our linemen that we can actually play,” Edwards said.

Nevertheless, Hali’s 71â2 sacks last year pale in comparison with Allen’s NFL-leading 151â2. The Chiefs will count heavily on getting quarterback pressure up the middle from Dorsey, who had seven sacks for LSU last year while playing in a system that rarely unleashed him upfield.

“He was a two-gap a lot, and he never got to penetrate,” Edwards said. “That’s why when you look at his sacks and he only had seven. We’re going to let him go. He can just go upfield. He’s a very aggressive player, very strong, very athletic.”

For much of the season, he was also hobbled with an ankle injury. But Chiefs’ doctors looked him over twice.

“Our doctors are very comfortable with him now,” said Chiefs president Carl Peterson.

Both Dorsey and Albert will be counted on to become instant starters and lay the foundation for a draft that everyone connected with the Chiefs concedes is one of their most important ever.

Albert, who didn’t take up football until his junior year of high school, will probably be used at tackle.

“Man, I’m ecstatic,” he said. “I got drafted with probably the best player in the draft, Glenn Dorsey.”

Although he’s played mostly guard, he could be shifted to tackle, one of the offensive line jobs that are wide open in Kansas City.

“I’ll be fine at left tackle,” he said. “Even though I didn’t go where I thought I was going to go, that means they traded up, that means they wanted me. I’m happy I was in demand like that.”

Flowers, who had 10 interceptions in his college career, will be expected to lend immediate improvement to a defensive secondary that became perilously old. If he’s anything less than a full-time starter as a rookie, it will be a disappointment.