Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Steve Nelson is entering his second year with the team after being selected in the third round (No. 98 overall) of the 2015 NFL Draft out of Oregon State.

The 5-foot-11, 194-pounder played in 12 games last season with the majority of his snaps coming on special teams.

Overall, Nelson played 53 defensive and 125 special teams snaps on the year.

Throughout offseason workouts this year, Nelson has been one of the standouts for the Chiefs defense, making plays all over the field on both the outside as well as inside at the nickel cornerback position.

"He really started picking up towards the end of last year," Chiefs coach Andy Reid recently said of Nelson. "I thought he kind of took off the last quarter of the season. We were excited to see if he'd continue to grow at that inside position."

The nickel position was held last year by Phillip Gaines until he was lost for the season with a knee injury suffered in Week 3 against the Green Bay Packers. After that, safety Ron Parker slid down from his safety spot to handle most of the nickel duties.

While both of those players return this season, Nelson has spent a lot of time this offseason at that nickel position—a spot he hopes to earn and one that he hopes to show Reid and the other coaches he can handle.

"He has made some plays in the inside with the first group there," Reid said of Nelson's offseason playmaking thus far.

Nelson hopes that continues when training camp rolls around at the end of July.

TOP MOMENT OF LAST SEASON

One of the Nelson's games that really stands out in the mind of general manager John Dorsey was against the Houston Texans.

"I think [Nelson] made great strides (last year)," Dorsey said. "What I truly admired in him – I don't know if you remember the Texans game when Marcus Peters lost his shoe, that young man ran right in there, went out after (DeAndre) Hopkins and guess what, he broke up a pass. That was a big play.

"I've seen steady improvement from him as we've gone along this season. I expect big things from (him) here in year two."

HOW HE FITS

The defensive backs room will be one of the top training camp battles to watch, and Nelson figures to be right in the middle of the action.

While his growth and development over the past year has been praised by Dorsey and Reid, there's a handful of young talent at the position that was added in the draft.

Although nothing has been handed to anyone as of now, Reid did confirm that Nelson "came out as the first nickel" after offseason workouts.