The biggest takeaway from KC Chiefs GM Brett Veach’s comments on the NFL Draft
Six days shy of the most intriguing draft of his tenure, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach walked into the media room at the team’s Kansas City facility and spoke for 35 minutes.
He talked cornerbacks, wide receivers and edge rushers. He talked short-term thinking, and he talked big-picture outlook.
But the most revealing moments of his news conference Friday came not from something he said directly, but rather a couple of comments he made allusively.
Here’s what you should read into them: On the NFL Draft’s opening night — Thursday — the Chiefs will be open for business ... and ideally, they’d like to make a sale.
They hold the 29th and 30th overall selections in the first round, the initial two of their 12 picks in this year’s draft. The conclusion of the first round is an interesting spot to occupy, but maybe not a desirable one this year.
The Chiefs have nearly 200 names on their draft board, and beyond grading them in pockets respective to their peers, they evaluate players based on rounds. Is Player X worthy of a first-round pick, or in a typical draft, would he fall into the second round?
This year, the Chiefs’ front-office staff has doled out first-round grades on 16-18 players. That’s it. And it’s a far cry from 29 or 30.
“The odds of maybe one of those guys falling isn’t great,” Veach said.
The league’s 32 teams will have 32 different boards and 32 different grading systems for the three-day draft, but the most overlap hovers around those first-round prospects. Many other teams have the top quarterbacks available next week somewhere on their draft boards; the Chiefs do not.
But those factors are extremely unlikely to push one of the Chiefs’ top 16-18 players down 10 picks. Heck, they might feel lucky if one of those players is pushed down four or five picks.
So what now?
Time to make a deal. Move up. Move down. Just move somewhere.
The latter — moving at least one of their two selections backward — should net the Chiefs better bang for their buck, for a couple of reasons. As mentioned earlier, the back end of the first round is an interesting spot — only first-round picks have contracts that include a team option for a fifth season before a player hits free agency. That’s most attractive to teams seeking a quarterback in this draft, and this year’s quarterback class happens to include a few names who could fall.
If a team is interested in obtaining a quarterback on a contract that includes a fifth-year option, who would they call? How about the team with two late first-round picks instead of just one? How about the team that just broadcast that it has only 16-18 prospects graded as first-round talents — the same team that currently holds picks No. 29 and No. 30?
The Chiefs are ready to listen.
They view this draft class, in its totality, as similar to a year ago, when they hit on two second-round picks, taking linebacker Nick Bolton (58th overall) and center Creed Humphrey (63rd).
“When you look at value in this draft, 30-60 is really good,” Veach said. “We were able to get Nick Bolton and Creed Humphrey last year. I think there will be value similar to that. There were will be really good players in that second and third round.”
So why not add picks in that sweet spot? An early second- and early third-round pick outweighs one in the late first, particularly if you’ve decided that’s where the meat of this class resides.
That’s one option.
The other? Go get one of those 16-18 players. Veach said Friday he doesn’t anticipate making some huge jump — as in moving into the top 10. But he wouldn’t rule out something less ambitious, should one of those players with a first-round grade fall farther than expected.
In the opening round, though, a fall often means simply dropping to somewhere around 21 or 22. A free-fall is unlikely. But at some point, a trade up could start to make a little sense, especially for a team that has some extra ammunition with 12 draft picks (two in each of the first four rounds).
That’s the unknown. The unpredictable. The piece of the draft that will require adaptation as it unfolds. Which is part of the allure of the draft itself, right?
The Chiefs might be idle for the opening couple of hours on Thursday night. But they’ll play a leading role in which way the plot turns afterward.
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 3:54 PM.