Slamming The Breaks: This Year's Aggressive Correction

Chiefs GM Brett Veach is a week and some change remove from his fifth draft as the leader of the Kansas City personnel department. It’s easily his most crucial.

His roster is by far the most flawed it’s been this late in the process — a surprise considering the aggression that he uses to address problems on his roster.

In 2019, the Chiefs overhauled their defense after fielding a horrific unit that was bailed out by a historic offense all the way to the AFC Championship Game. The finishing touch was a big trade to acquire Frank Clark for Seattle — a move that involved the Chiefs’ first round pick.

The Chiefs wanted to run it back in 2020 after winning the Super Bowl. Veach was able to secure a big extension to keep Chris Jones under contract as the team made an attempt to keep the core together.

Last year, Veach was in hot pursuit of the best left tackle in football — Trent Williams — when he hit free agency. This was, of course, a response to the gaping hole along the offensive line that saw the Chiefs dominated up front in the Super Bowl after a wave of attrition.

He would go on to make a big trade for offensive tackle Orlando Brown to address the issue — a move that involved the Chiefs’ first round pick.

Eight days from the Draft and the Chiefs have gone the opposite direction for the first time since Veach took over. They’ve acquired an additional first round pick and more from Miami for superstar receiver Tyreek Hill — a player who commanded the largest receiver contract in history from the Dolphins.

The Chiefs have moved on from pieces of the core that helped them win the Super Bowl in Hill, Tyrann Mathieu, and Anthony Hitchens. They’ve made free agency moves, but no big swings beyond safety Justin Reid.

There are significant questions at defensive end, cornerback, and wide receiver — positions that we’ve spent a great deal of time analyzing at KCSN. This is the most unsettled team we’ve seen the Chiefs have this close to the draft.

I am timid to even write this knowing the tendencies of this team’s willingness to surrender draft capital for proven vets, but it seems like the aggressive correction is actually slamming the breaks on their aggressive tendencies and building the next wave around their All-World quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

This is looking like an aggressive course alteration. While the rest of the AFC is gearing up to try to slow down the Chiefs’ dominance within the conference, the Chiefs seem to be going the other direction.

They’re zigging where the rest of the league is zagging.

We thought this could be another year where the Chiefs could be involved in free agency in a big way. They could extend Hill, restructure Mahomes, and free up some space to spend with the rest of the AFC — especially the West.

Instead, they’ve made modest investments, not moved money around for this year with Mahomes, traded Hill, and sit with more holes on their roster than they have in recent memory.

Time is running out on making that big swing, and the options are narrow at any position outside of wide receiver. It’d be a surprise to see the Chiefs make a big move to acquire a receiver considering they just moved on from Hill.

The Chiefs have entered the last four drafts with an average of 256 points in capital (per the Rich Hill trade value chart model). Veach’s aggressiveness (and paying for the trade up for Mahomes) has left the pick value severely reduced on draft weekend.

The Chiefs currently sit with 724 points in capital for this draft — nearly triple the average of capital at draft weekend in the last four seasons.

If the Chiefs reach the finish line with all this war chest of picks intact, it could provide them an opportunity to kickstart the next era in a substantial way. Being draft-heavy this year also affords the Chiefs further flexibility in the future when other AFC opponents are going all in now to try to catch up to them. The Chiefs can roll cap space into 2023 to go with their new wave of young talent in the 2021 and 2022 classes (plus plenty of draft capital as well).

The luxury of having a Super Bowl victory already affords the Chiefs the opportunity to operate differently this offseason. So many teams in the AFC are still chasing that elusive first title. They’ve seen the Rams go all-in to secure theirs and some teams are following that model with big investments to make their roster competitive.

The talent on the Chiefs’ roster has diminished, but teams had some work to do to catch up to them anyway. The gap may have closed for this season, but the Chiefs are well-positioned for their next run. This isn’t to say the Chiefs will be bad this year — they certainly won’t. But the conference — and division — are more in question than they’ve been.

But if Veach nails this draft, identifies quality contributors at key positions, and smartly leverages this opportunity to change the complexion of this team for the future it could set them up to be a dominant force despite being in a stacked conference.

The connotation of a rebuild has negative connotations. This is not a lost season and the Chiefs will still be one of the favorites to get out of the AFC and into the Super Bowl.

It also doesn’t mean that there won’t be veteran additions after the draft. In fact, I expect the Chiefs to be heavily involved in adding depth with released players from now until August. In fact, part of the Chiefs’ ability to compete will hinge on adding veterans at value.

This roster has largely been built on blue chip players from the John Dorsey era. Mahomes (although Veach had a significant role in his acquisition by all indications), Hill, Kelce, and Jones all were drafted by a different GM.

Veach is coming off a year that could yield his first blue chip player in four years of drafting — center Creed Humphrey. Despite having the least amount of draft capital he’s had to work with to date last year, he identified three key contributors in Humphrey, linebacker Nick Bolton, and guard Trey Smith.

In a defining year, Veach will need to find a similar return — this time at positions with much higher positional value than interior offensive lineman and linebacker. Luckily he has the kind of capital to make quality investments at these positions.

The breaks were slammed when Hill was traded, and now it’s time to find the next group of Chiefs to fall in love with. Don’t get too comfortable though. Most of them will be gone before Mahomes is — just like it was always going to be with Hill.