Grading every Chiefs first-round pick during Brett Veach’s tenure

Let’s take a look at the use of every first-round pick for the Kansas City Chiefs ever since Brett Veach took control as general manager.

There’s one primary evaluative method that should be utilized in the National Football League: Super Bowl wins. From there, a team might lean on Super Bowl appearances or deep postseason runs, or even playoff appearances, but there’s no denying that championships are the goal and, with that in view, general manager Brett Veach has done a remarkable job with the Kansas City Chiefs.

It’s important to get all of this out first because the larger perspective can fade from view pretty quickly when you get lost in the weeds. After all, Veach’s first couple of drafts weren’t pretty, some signings were questionable, and some trades were surprising. Everyone has to learn on the job, but a general manager is under the microscope from day one and it can be hard for many GMs to rebound from a bad call or overcome their own mistakes.

That’s definitely not true for Veach. These days, he’s drafting as well as anyone in football. He’s also a restrained shopper in free agency who has learned to pursue the necessary big-ticket items needed to win and then allow the deals to come to him from there. It’s working so far as the Chiefs have a lean operation without any serious financial woes on the budget and yet they’re the defending champs. Oh yeah, the roster is also incredibly young with another 10 draft picks on the way.

On the eve of the 2023 NFL Draft, and yet another first-round pick to utilize, we thought we’d look back at the way Veach used his first several first-round choices to see what grade we would give him for each year.

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2018: Used in trade for Patrick Mahomes

Honestly, what more needs to be said here from the outset?

The Chiefs would get an A+ for this trade if they’d surrendered five more first-round picks for Patrick Mahomes. Instead, they got it done with two late firsts and a third in a deal with the Buffalo Bills in the 2017 NFL Draft and they’ve been laughing at the rest of the league ever since.

The Chiefs haven’t made a road trip in the postseason since Mahomes arrived, except to make their way to a neutral site for a(nother) Super Bowl appearance. They are the class of the NFL with Mahomes under center and they’re going to stay that way until Mahomes hangs up his cleats. When you can trade two first-round picks in exchange for generational dominance, you make that deal every time.

Grade: A+