Arrowhead Pride
Veach believes that it can be easier to find running back value late on draft weekend.
On Tuesday, Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach took to the podium at the NFL Scouting Combine. The general manager discussed various topics, including the future of some of Kansas City’s bigger-named free agents, the strengths of this draft and where he thinks Kansas City can find good value.
Veach has always held to a few maxims of team building during his time as general manager of the Chiefs, two of which he hit on during his press conference.
The first one is one he has never had to worry about — and that’s that you need to take care of getting a quarterback first. Veach has been lucky that he has had Patrick Mahomes under center every season as a general manager in the National Football League.
Second, Veach said that he believes to be successful, you need to build your roster through the trenches, focusing on securing the offensive and defensive lines first.
“I think every offseason it’s offensive line and defensive line,” said Veach. “I think if you look at how we’ve handled the offseason — whether it was a Joe Thuney or trading for [Orlando] Brown or [Jawaan] Taylor or Frank Clark or Chris Jones — we’re always investing in the offense and defense of lines.”
Veach added that he believes the strength of this draft lies in the defensive line, linebackers and running backs. Interestingly enough, it seems that his and other general managers' emphasis on placing value on big men has inadvertently had the trickle-down effect of the Chiefs being able to find good value at running back later in the draft.
“Going back to generally the philosophy of most teams, you’re gonna have O-line [and] D-line that maybe they don’t have the best tape but they have qualities to work with, and they’re gonna go higher.
“You could have a lineman that maybe has played a limited amount, but they have the size, the length, the athletic ability to work with. Those guys probably go ahead of running backs set of rushed for 1,000 yards for three years.
“Corners, tackles, defensive linemen, those guys are gonna go — when their tape’s good, they go high, and when their tapes average, they’re still gonna go in the middle rounds, whereas the running backs, you can have a running back that rushes for 1,000 yards for three years and still go in the sixth or seventh round. That’s typically why there’s more of a likelihood of hitting on running backs late in the draft.”
That being said, Veach explained that in today’s NFL, you need more than one good running back on your roster, and thanks to big years from guys like Philadelphia Eagles Saquon Barkley, he believes running back value is coming back full circle.
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