Even as KC Chiefs seek to extend window of Mahomes Era, the present remains precious
At his pre-draft news conference on Friday afternoon, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach was typically expansive and illuminating … at least in terms of generalities and process.
As for any inclination towards specifics?
That tone was set with his deadpan delivery on the first question of the day when he was asked about potential big-splash acquisitions ahead:
“Uh, Deebo Samuel,” he said, smiling in reference to the disgruntled San Francisco receiver/running back who would be an exorbitant expense in every way, before pivoting to a more generic response.
Moreover, the need to establish smokescreens was underscored in his later response to a question about how much to believe this time of year from NFL general managers speaking about draft strategy:
“As far as what to believe,” he said, smiling, “I wouldn’t believe anything.”
This much you can know, though:
With 12 picks in hand for the NFL Draft, having bid farewell to two of their most identifiable and accomplished veteran players and amid the ever-churning work of navigating Patrick Mahomes’ contract and its salary-cap implications, Veach surely will make good one way or another on his stated plan to “have a lot of fun with these picks.”
And while we don’t know the grand design just yet, it’s easy to see that this is all part of yet another dynamic phase of the Mahomes Era.
“This is a time,” Veach said, “where we decided to alter the course of action.”
Five years after they drafted Mahomes, four years since he became QB1, three years since they blew up the defense to complement him and a year since they made over their entire offensive line to protect him, this year’s extreme makeover is morphing into becoming younger, more versatile and more economically nimble in his tenure.
The basic strategy is to extend the bright horizon of the Mahomes years without compromising the immediate future, one that seeks to add to four straight AFC Championship Game berths and aspires to a third Super Bowl appearance in four years.
It’s tempting to see then and now as incompatible, or at least as what Veach acknowledges as a balancing act.
In a game quite defined now by constant change, though, driving that evolution by design is a lot different than being acted upon or passively reacting. And there is no doubt the Chiefs could prosper by some fundamental elements of change, especially offensively after a season in which they were still good but also just stymied too often.
So even if the Chiefs had to let a few things play out (such as contract negotiations with Tyreek Hill that made them feel both signing him long-term and adequately addressing other needs was untenable) before they engaged next steps, there is zero concession being made right here, right now.
Hard as it might be to replicate a talent like Hill, Veach said, people seem to forget how many different ways Andy Reid has engineered victories throughout a career that will put him in the Pro Football of Fame one day.
And while the foreground now might look hazy with the trade of Hill (for five draft picks) and a farewell to Tyrann Mathieu, the Chiefs already have made intriguing additions in those realms (receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling and safety Justin Reid) and surely will add plenty more in the weeks to come even as that remains harder to embrace as anonymous prospects just now.
Meanwhile, Veach was here to remind you of something both obvious and overlooked in the middle of all the other flux.
“When you have Pat Mahomes,” he said, “I think we’re wired to go after it every year.”
Meaning that this is still about actualizing the precious early years of the window as much as the later ones. The departure of “really good players,” he added, doesn’t preclude “a counterpunch” or the idea of being “aggressive in another way.”
“I think you just have to be smart and flexible (in what) you do,” he said. “And I think what’s needed to do that is draft resources and cap space.
“And so just because you trade away a great player doesn’t mean … we’re in a rebuilding mode by any means. It just means that we’re just going to find a new set of resources and try to become aggressive.”
Predicting precisely what that means is fairly impossible, given the inherent flux of the draft, (the Chiefs need to be flexible, Veach said, and “let the board talk to us”) and Veach’s strategic vagueness and penchant for deal-making.
But we might well anticipate this: Until proven otherwise, safe to say Veach and his staff are great at what they do and have demonstrated repeatedly now that they can orchestrate major tweaks and even overhauls seamlessly.
Moreover, this isn’t just the Mahomes Era.
It’s the Reid-Mahomes Era as furnished by Veach and funded by Clark Hunt and the Chiefs, a harmonic alignment rare in NFL history that should reassure any of us that the future still is now even as they steer toward the actual future, too.
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 4:28 PM.