What Chiefs fans learned about Brett Veach in 2022 NFL Draft
By Matt Conner
Veach can make more than six picks
The Chiefs first handed the reins to the front office to Brett Veach back in the summer of 2017, when the team allowed John Dorsey to leave early from the organization without finishing out the final year of his contract. At that point, it would be nearly a full year until Veach could put his own stamp on a draft.
In that first draft class, back in 2018, the Chiefs ended up taking only six overall selections, which wasn’t too much of a surprise given that the Chiefs had traded away the first-round pick in order to move up and get Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 draft. However, in 2019, a pattern began to emerge when the Chiefs once again included only six picks in the draft class. Once again, a first-round pick was traded away to help reshape the defense with the trade for Frank Clark.
Fast forward a year to 2020 and even when the Chiefs keep their first-round pick—this time to be used on running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire—they still came away with only six draftees in their class. That’s not to say that undrafted free agents were signed and utilized. Rather the draft classes remained the same. And if three classes in a row weren’t enough to establish the pattern, then the 2021 class certainly did it. The Chiefs landed plenty of great players, but in the end, there were still only six of them.
This weekend, the Chiefs came into the draft with 12 picks, which seemed ridiculous to have twice as many draft selections as a typical Chiefs draft class under Veach. The thought was that Veach would likely deal some of them to move around and/or gain future picks. While trades were made, the truth is that Veach ended up using a lot more picks than most of us expected.
The Chiefs closed out draft weekend with an incredible 10 picks, giving them four more than any other class in Veach’s short history.