It’s that time of year, Chiefs Kingdom.
With the NFL season rapidly approaching, Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach could look to make some of his annual trades soon. Since Veach took over as general manager of the Chiefs, August has been his most active month in terms of making trades.
Last season, Veach made a pair of trades in August, including one that ended up providing a key depth piece during the middle part of the season. The Chiefs sent RB Carlos Hyde to the Houston Texans in exchange for OL Martinas Rankin, who ended up starting five games for Kansas City. They also sent CB Mark Fields to the Vikings for a conditional draft pick.
In August ahead of the 2018 season, the Chiefs added Jordan Lucas in trade with the Dolphins. They also added current starting CB Charvarius Ward in a trade sending draft pick Parker Ehinger to the Cowboys.
Finally, when Veach took over in 2017, some of his first decisions as general manager included trades. He acquired both OL Cam Erving and LB Reggie Ragland in trades ahead of the start of the season.
Now, this COVID-19 affected season will obviously be much different. Veach and his staff won’t have preseason game film to use as an evaluation tool when it comes to acquiring players.
“It’s challenging,” Veach said. “Everyone, obviously, is in the same predicament. We’ve done a really good job of scouring through so much preseason tape. You look at guys like Demone Harris or Charvarius Ward, Alex Brown — who was our active roster for the Super Bowl — Antonio Hamilton this year. All of these guys, we first caught wind of during their preseason tape. So it puts us at a little bit of a disadvantage, just because I feel our personnel staff, led by Mike Borgonzi and Tim Terry, they do such a good job of combing through the pro tape. It’s a little bit of a disadvantage for us, because I think we were really ahead of the game in that regard.”
The front office will have to adjust their strategy. Maybe they’ll have to follow the post-practice musings from beat reporters from other NFL teams. Maybe they’ll fall back on their draft evaluations and college tape for players they have interest in. Maybe they’ll use their status as Super Bowl champions to get a haul for a player that previously wouldn’t have fetched as much.
One thing is for certain. This team isn’t going to stop finding ways to improve the roster and future draft capital just because things are more difficult this season. In fact, I would be shocked if Veach and his staff didn’t attack this challenge and find a way to turn it into an advantage for Kansas City.
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