KC Chiefs: Five moves Brett Veach deserves more credit for

The Alex Smith trade

It may be a surprise to some why this is on the list but it does belong here. After the Chiefs lost to the Tennessee Titans in the 2017-18 wild card round, Brett Veach had a choice to make about what to do with longtime quarterback Alex Smith. Keep him or trade him? There were some in Chiefs Kingdom who believed that Patrick Mahomes needed another year to develop on the bench, while some believed that Mahomes was ready.

When the Chiefs decided that Mahomes would be the guy going forward, there was no point in keeping Smith. He would have been an extremely expensive backup and it would have been a locker room issue to have Mahomes starting over Smith after the latter had led the team for the past five years.

They ended up trading him in late January (not official until March) of 2018 to Washington for Kendall Fuller and the 78th overall pick. It can certainly be argued that the Chiefs could have gotten more value at the time for Smith but the Chiefs’ main goal was to get his money off the books so they could build around Mahomes.

The reason that this trade is underrated is that the Chiefs cleared $17 million from their books for 2018 which then allowed them to build a great supporting cast for Mahomes, including signing wide receiver Sammy Watkins. They also received Kendall Fuller, while not great, he did give the Chiefs two seasons of solid play, including the game-sealing interception of 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in Super Bowl LIV.

Even though Fuller didn’t stick around after the super bowl win, he did give the Chiefs enough value to say that they got something positive from the trade, outside of money.