ChiefsPlanet - Nate Taylor: Veach is smarter than you, but is just as smart as Direckshun.

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Nate Taylor: Veach is smarter than you, but is just as smart as Direckshun.

Nate Taylor had a barn burner of about 5 minutes on the Time's Ours podcast, giving us as good a look inside the Chiefs draft room as there exists from an independent source.

He (irritatingly) summarizes the Chiefs reactions to several picks:

At 21, Q Johnston goes to the Chargers: the draft room goes "eesh"

At 22, Zay goes to Baltimore: "damn"

At 27, A. Harrison to the Jags: <zen acceptance groan>

At 28, Murphy goes to the Bengals: sign of relief

But the one that hurt them the most was the Cowboys selection of Mazi Smith.

The Chiefs didn't bring in Mazi, they went to Michigan to meet with him, which Taylor says his agent must have leveraged to see if he could get a team to pick him earlier (as agents do).

What made Veach smarter than all of us, Taylor says, is that these flashy, rules-threatening practice workouts where receiver after receiver works out in flashy, social-media-friendly snippets in Texas with Pat Mahomes, in an effort to get some misdirection going in the minds of other players (and most of the fans of this fan base -- okay, including me, alright?).

They felt that Mazi next to Jones would be "special." And when Mazi went to Dallas, it got very tense in the room, and the Chiefs draft room started seriously flirting with trading down at that point.

They were satisfied and perfectly happy with taking FAU, but he was not at the top of their board.

Much to my chagrin, there was no mention in the podcast about Nolan Smith, which leads me to believe he truly was not on their radar as a scheme fit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Franchise (Post 16930110)

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Giants actually tried to trade up earlier for Deonte Banks. Eventually, they landed at 24 because the Chiefs were trying to trade up and the thought was that it was for Banks. <br><br>That and much more on the Giants draft in this week’s Breaking Big Blue.<a href="https://t.co/lL4XaZrDuj">https://t.co/lL4XaZrDuj</a></p>— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanRaanan/status/1653146257844584449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So now we were trading up for Banks in the exact spot that he went. Same thing with Mazi Smith.

Yep…sure sounds totally legit. Next you’ll hear that we tried trading up with the Jags for Anton Harrison.

You were wrong man. Acceptance is the first step

So what is everyone's plans for this summer?

The Chiefs were targeting a NT in the 1st, a position that they haven't really valued higher than the 3rd during Reid/Veach's tenure, and then proceeded to wait until the 6th round to take one?

Not buying it at all.

All I'm doing is repeating Nate Taylor's reporting, a guy who has been very credible from the get go.

I try not to make a habit of judging reputable reporting by how much I want it to be true.

Nate Taylor: The Chiefs are expected to franchise tag Orlando Brown Jr.

Dude is a far cry from Terez who actually appeared to have legitimate sources in the organization.

If they wanted Mazi that bad, they could've traded up to get him, even if it meant overpaying a little.

The Chiefs aren't going to miss any of the players mentioned in the OP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun (Post 16930105)

So where does your "Clark blocking trades" fan fiction fit into this?

How does any reporter know this? I don't believe Nate Taylor knows anything

Nate doesn't know anything at all. Dude was sure we were franchising OBJ and was sure we would try everything we could go bring back JJSS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by staylor26 (Post 16930260)

Nate Taylor: The Chiefs are expected to franchise tag Orlando Brown Jr.

Dude is a far cry from Terez who actually appeared to have legitimate sources in the organization.

Nate had also been trumpeting that the Chiefs were going to take Smith so it was kinda in his best interests to say "See! I told ya!"

I just don't think he's very useful at all during draft season and that's really all there is to it. He took a lot of heat online for his mock where he decided to trade up for Smith (which...they would've needed to do) and so he may just want to feel vindicated.

I dunno - I don't put a ton of stock in it. I just don't see them doing that for a DT unless they thought Smith was a real monster. And if they did think that, they'd have probably overpaid a bit to get there. It's EXACTLY what they did with the McDuffie deal. They paid a premium to get a guy they really wanted.

They didn't do that here. I think that says more than any reporting from Taylor could.