If there has been one thing that has become synonymous with Brett Veach’s tenure as general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, it’s a good old fashioned trade. Since his arrival in 2017, Veach has made 17 total trades, 14 of which involved some sort of transference of draft capital.
With the 2020 NFL Draft just around the corner, many Chiefs fans find themselves wondering if the team could make yet another trade to better position themselves. Veach commented on the possibility of some draft mobility in his Thursday conference call with the media.
“Obviously the more picks the more flexibility you have in every draft in regards to being able to position yourself for guys that you want,” Veach said, “I think that when you look at this draft, I would say that you never want to go into a draft and pigeonhole yourself in saying ‘We’re definitely moving down’ or ‘We’re definitely just going to stay there’. Like you mentioned only having five picks you want to add as much talent around Pat Mahomes on the offensive side and the Badger (S Tyrann Mathieu) and the crew on defense. Certainly, the more picks the better. We want to continue to add depth and to add talent. It would be unlikely that we would try to make a big bold move up there but wouldn’t want to rule it out. Certainly, I think that we’re going to assess the board and after we get closer to our pick there could be a scenario where there’s a guy that we just did not anticipate being there that we get excited about and there also could be scenarios where we have a pocket of players that we like and if teams fall in love with a player that they want at 32 we’ll certainly field phone calls and be open to all sorts of options.”
Right now, the Chiefs have just five selections in the draft. Compare that to the Miami Dolphins, who have a whopping 14 draft picks. It wouldn’t hurt for Kansas City to trade back and add some extra draft capital, especially if they can use it to surround Mahomes with more talent. That seems the most likely scenario in terms of making a trade and they’re well-positioned to do so at pick No. 32. There have been three trades of that pick in the last decade of the NFL Draft.
At the same time, perhaps shockingly, Veach wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the team might manufacture a trade up. He said it was unlikely that they’d pull off a big trade up like they did to acquire Patrick Mahomes. Keep in mind, Veach traded up in each of the last two drafts in order to select a player the Chiefs were excited about. It’s within the realm of possibility that they could do so again.
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