Do you trust Veach/Reid to draft WR or DE?
 

Everyone is pretty excited and rightfully so to have 6 top 100 draft picks in this incredibly deep draft. Two of our biggest needs are DE and WR and two of the deepest position groups in the draft. This couldn't be more perfect, right?

I'm starting to get a little nervous because this draft may be the difference between setting the franchise up for years of continued success or the end of a mini-dynasty. Given this team's draft history of DE and WR under Reid, I am a little worried. I fully trust them at drafting G/C positions and CBs anywhere in the draft. Their record with QB is pretty dang good as well. It's just CB and pass rush that I'm concerned about with them.


Reid/Dorsey

2013 DE Mike Catapano 7th...throw away pick. 2 Career sacks.
2014 DE Dee Ford. 1st round pick. Played more than 6 games twice in his 8 year career. Had 1 pro bowl season in 2018. Is he considered a bust?
2015 WR Chris Conley 3rd round. Was drafted more on potential. Best season so far for him was in Jacksonville 47/775/5.
2016 WR DeMarcus Robinson 4th...Mr Backwards. Role Player at best.
2016 WR Tyreek Hill 5th. Accidently ran into greatness. Was drafted as KR and the plan was to use him primarily as an RB.
2016 DE Dadi Nicolas 6th...
2017 DE Tanoh Kpass 2nd...bust. I'd have liked to see him with Spags his entire career though instead of the previous cluster ****.
2017 WR Jehu Chesson 4th...

Reid/Veach

2018 DE Beeland Speaks 2nd (traded up for this loser) BUST
2018 WR/CB/KR Tremon Smith 6th...I don't remember if he was CB then they moved him to WR or vice versa.
2019 WR Mecole Hardman 2nd BUST. The guy has all the speed and talent to be a very good WR but skips out on working out with Mahomes in the off-season and never seems to be on the same page as Mahomes.
2020 DE Michael Danna 5th. He plays because they have garbage at DE. Not a starter level but role type player, which is fine for a 5th rounder.
2021 DE Joshua Kaindoh 4th. Can a 4th rounder be a bust? MIA
2021 WR Cornell Powell 5th. Can a 5th rounder be a bust? MIA

Obviously, Reid did draft some good players at those positions in Philly.
DE Derrick Burgess
DE Trent Cole
WR Desean Jackson
WR Jeremy Macklin
WR Jason Avant

1. Mecole Hardman is not a “bust”.

2. Breeland Speaks and Hardman are the only significant investments they’ve made in the draft at those positions.

You have unrealistic expectations for what you call a bust. Hardman isn’t an all pro, but to call him a bust is just silly.

Calling Day 3 picks busts is ****ing dumb and it's Maclin. What the **** are they teaching you emaw ****s

nobody is 100% in the draft lol. Last season's draft was awesome. The one before that was pretty good getting Sneed and Gay, even though let's face it the first round RB was a huge whiff when you see what Taylor is doing and was taken 9 picks later. They completely missed there obviously.

He's a bust because of his draft position. If he was a 4th rounder then he'd be a good pick. He's a gimmick player that will never be a starting WR until he decides he's ready to put in the work.

Kpass was also a 2nd rounder.

Your 2nd rounders should be starters at least. Not gimmick jet sweep role players.

No, I'm saying position-wise. They have a track record of Center and Guard. The last two LB picks have been good as well. The CB's have been phenomenal considering the lack of investment outside of Peters.

They haven't hit on WR or DE at all.

The FIFTY SIXTH player in the draft is not expected to be better than Hardman.

Maybe by drooling drafturbators who think every pick is a pro bowler, but in reality, every single team in the NFL would run Hardman's name to the podium if they were guaranteed his play.

A 2nd rounder should be a starting quality player and we are going into year 4 and the Chiefs can't trust him to start after his failure with that last season. No one said he needed to be a pro bowler.

He was a boom or bust type receiver coming out who was very raw. He hasn't improved at all since his arrival. He doesn't appear to be willing to put in the work to improve his timing with his all-world QB and still makes silly route mistakes.

56th overall you mean. That's a lot different to 33.

There's also a big difference between being a good role player and a bust. Arcega-Whiteside is a bust.

Just look at that 2nd round. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NFL_Draft

Between picks 40 and 64, Hardman is like the 4th or 5th best player.

You're just wrong. Might as well realize that now, or otherwise keep deluding yourself and repeating your woes 3 years from now. 20-25 of the guys taken in the upcoming 2nd round will ultimately be pretty dogshit.

Hopefully we end up with the next AJ Brown or Metcalf, but if not, give me Hardman and not JJAW, Andy Isabella, Parris Campbell or any of the other dozens of trashcans.

Not just Veach. Our entire scouting staff passed on

DK Metcalf
Terry McLaurin
Diontae Johnson


For Mecole.

I liked all of these players and thought both DK and McLaurin were 1st round talents.

I don't understand this pick still. Same as CEH who I actually did like...but Swift and Jonathan Taylor were still there.

As for DE, Speaks was a bad pick but it wasn't like we were passing obvious stars for him.

And AJ Brown was right before him.

I'll never understand the CEH (or any RB #1) pick with a team that had so many future holes. I will give Reid a pass on CEH because he's had very good success drafting RB in Philly and KC with Hunt.

And Speaks wasn't a 3-4 OLB and he probably wasn't a 3-4 end (undersized). He had no position under Bob Sutton's defense. Everything I saw had him as a 3rd-5th rounder. Mel Kiper liked him...But yes, I agree, there weren't many great picks after him.

The weird thing about CEH is they brought up Bryan Westbrook. If they wanted Westbrook why didn't they take Swift?

CEH is a nice player, he's not the physical talent of a Swift or a Taylor. He's just very polished.

He averages 630 total yards and 4 TD per year (not to mention his impact on special teams. That 100 yard kick return against the Chargers turned the game around).

I wouldn’t expect any better from the 56th pick in the draft. He was also a late second, closer to the beginning of the 3rd roundthan beginning of the 2nd

I agree that you'd hope for more out of a 2nd round WR, but I also saw someone post the 1st RD WR Bust % recently and I was really surprised to see how few WRs work out in this league.

AND he's been behind Tyreek Hill, who is the ultimate small, speedy WR.

It's been thought that Hardman was a reaction pick to the possibility that Hill would be gone with the psycho ex situation. Which would make sense.

It's difficult for small guys like that to play ON the line; they'll always struggle to get a clean/quick release at their size against press coverage.

And so Hardman has been a gadget guy. That doesn't mean he couldn't run routes from the 'Z' spot, where he gets a running start at it.

We'll see what Andy does, but I would expect that's the plan.

Thing is, hindsight is always 20/20. DK Metcalf hadn't shown anything other than a freakish physique and straight line speed. That's all he'd put on tape. There were real, big questions that he would be able to do anything other than run fly patterns in the NFL.

You could compare him to Watson this year as a prospect. While Watson has freakish size and speed, he played in a run heavy offense against lesser competition but he did show more lateral quickness than Metcalf. But to pretend now that Metcalf was this can't miss prospect that we passed on is not a legitimate stance to take.

Exactly.

There's a reason Metcalf went in the 2nd and not the 1st. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Are we not factoring in context when picks were made? Hardman was the closest thing to a Tyreek replacement on the board. We can argue until were blue in the face but its obvious the chiefs valued that speed element and thought they were going to lose tyreek. Then when CEH is taken they just came off a super bowl that had the rb1 Damien Williams hurt all season, just to show up and make a historic playoff and super bowl run. They clearly didnt trust Damien to be the guy and retruned something absurd like 50 starters from the sb season. They thought they saw a spot to make an immediate upgrade with a more reliable player. He wasnt my favorite RB ever drafted but swift had huge question marks and still isnt rb1, and Taylor had a ton of college miles before ever being drafted.

The problem with the CEH pick wasn't that they picked the wrong RB. It's that they picked a RB.

Yep.

As to the thread, you trust a GM because of the overall package anyway, not supposed ability to scout one position (which itself is done by a bunch of other people).

In other words, would you rather trust Veach to pick the right WR, or let's say the Commanders' front office, who stumbled into a stud like McLaurin at WR but are mostly a bunch of idiots?

By the same token, I don't consider Veach bulletproof when drafting a corner like some seem to. We've done well there, but that won't mean squat if we took a CB at 30 and he's awful.

2019 WR Mecole Hardman 2nd BUST. The guy has all the speed and talent to be a very good WR but skips out on working out with Mahomes in the off-season and never seems to be on the same page as Mahomes.


This take is dumb as ****. Just because it hasn't been reported they didn't work out doesn't mean they haven't worked out together in the off season. They always have OTAs too. They have been on the same page but Mahomes forces the ball to Tyreek way to often and Tyreek bobbles the ball and gets intercepted. Mecole was open in the second half of the Bengals game and should have taken advantage of that.

Has Mecole lived up to expectations no I'd say not but a lot of his opportunities were taken away by Tyreek Hill and if you look by ratio Hill would have made just as many mistakes as Mecole ratio of plays targets. The difference was opportunity. Now Mecole has a chance to earn with competition to battle it out for #1 WR but I think they are better suited moving guys around to confuse defenses.

Mecole may not win the #1 WR but I'm not worried about it he is going make plays because Andy Reid is going take advantage of his speed and he is a home run hitter. He played good in the playoffs but doesn't get credit for it.

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In the case of Hardman, I think the issue gets really clouded by a bunch of stuff that's meaningless.

DK Metcalf being one thing. He was FAR from a sure thing. Lotsa red flags.

Second, you want to put varied skillsets on the field at any one time. So having two tiny speedsters isn't ideal. A lot of potential Hardman plays went to Hill instead. I'm not saying they SHOULDN'T have, I'm saying they did. Hardman is not Hill, of course, but he has a similar skillset in a lot of ways. He'll probably never track the deep ball quite like Hill, but then nobody does. But as far as the screens, and jet sweeps, and then the deep patterns from the 'Z' position, yes, Hardman can do those things. I would say it's VERY likely that Hardman's role expands quite a bit this season, and he gets more targets that used to go to Hill.

MVS is also speedy, but much bigger, and that's going to help take the top off the defense. If I were a defensive coordinator, I'm not coming out of two deep shells just because Hill is gone. Do that, and Hardman and MVS will eat you alive.

Stay in the two deep shell, and Kelce and Juju will eat you alive.

God help me if the Chiefs ever decided to actually run the ball.

We're in a lot better shape than people think.

I still am in favor of drafting TWO WR's in this draft, as it's time to re-stock the position but there's no reason we can't be BETTER OVERALL from top to bottom at the position than we have been since Watkins left.

Meh but at the time we were bringing back 98% of the team. There wasn't much worry but needed a dynamic Running Back that CEH is (just has to stay healthy) At the time of the draft and late first round CEH was a luxury pick and kudos to Vlasic for giving SB LIV MVP the first pick of the draft and Clyde busted balls his first year until he did the splits and our offensive line went to shit. So it really was a good pick but Hindsight is always 20/50

We have no NO excuse not to run the ball and have balanced offense for a change much like Dick Vermei. I agree we have speed so we don't need speedy WR what we need is a solid route runner big and tall that can out leap DBs especially in the red zone end zone and take away Kelce getting beat up. Make them use a linebacker. But if we got a tall big target or a chain mover defenses can get ****ed because we will always have that deep threat. Short intermediate to mid range and deep. Defenses are going have to decide what to defend because Patrick is going pick them apart and I have a feeling this is going be Patrick Mahomes II best season that we haven't seen the best out of him yet. Patrick is coming and Hells coming with him HELLS COMING WITH HIM


With this offensive line there is no excuse not to run the ball and watch Trey Smith pancake linebackers that man looks forward to knocking guys on their ass all day.

I trust Vlasic to draft a edge rusher or D lineman and Edge rusher D lineman and CB before drafting a WR.

It was never a good pick. Just terrible value on a position that's easier to fill than Pestilence's mom.

"Value picks" like that are how you get into positions like we're in now. Had they taken a WR there, we'd be better off now.

Forward thinking in the draft. Alwasys.

Yes and No, Probably shouldnt have taken a 1st rounder BUT had they taken any other top RB, Taylor, Swift, Dobbins (2nd rounders) or even Antonio Gibson (3rd rounder) we would be much happier with the pick.

So I think both sides of this discussion have merit.

Take one in the 2nd, still not ideal, but whatever. That's where good Rb's go.

Just don't do it in the first.

This thread is ****ing stupid.

This simply isn't supported by the weight of the evidence. At all.

About 1/2 of the picks taken in the 2nd round in any given year will become starters by their 3rd NFL season.

Guys taken ahead of Hardman who have been less productive than him:

Clellin Ferrell
TJ Hockenson
Devin Bush
Jonah Williams
Rashan Gary (though he's finally coming along)
Dwayne Haskins....uh
Noah Fant
Andre Dillard
Jonathan Abram
Jerry Tillery
LJ Collier
Deandre Baker
N'Keal Harry
Rock Ya-Sin
Greg Little
Cody Ford
Trayvon Mullen
Drew Lock
Jahlani Tavai
Joejuan Williams
Greedy Williams
Marquise Blair
Ben Banogu
Irv Smith
Drew Sample
Lonnie Johnson

That's 26 guys; about half the picks ahead of him. And frankly I'm leaving out another half-dozen close questions because I just don't feel like arguing about it.

This idea that 2nd rounders are just going to become starters is simply asinine. There are 7 guys taken in the 2nd round that year who were essentially 'day 1' starters.

Your position w/r/t Veach's ability to draft doesn't mean anything because you lack the proper perspective to meaningfully evaluate his performance.

I love the argument that Brown, Metcalf or McLaurin would have been just complete studs in this offense from day 1.

Hill and Kelce were getting their targets. Now maybe Metcalf, Brown or McLaurin eliminate the need for Watkins coming in but that's not a guarantee either.

Doesn't this somewhat blow apart the "sit tight and make all our picks" thought process though? If they feel a guy is worth it, trade up?

No.

Because about 1/2 those guys are 1st round picks.

They're slightly less likely to bust, but not by orders of magnitude.

So keep your picks, get an EXTRA guy and let the law of large numbers work to your advantage.

McLaurin would've been.

That's a rough miss.

But again, the whole damn argument ignores the fact that it REALLY looked like Tyreek Hill was on his way out of the league when that pick was made. And the whole offense had been built around his deep speed.

It's just lazy.

True.

In general, I think we need to realize that most of these guys were about to draft just aren't gonna turn into Tyreek Hills and Travis Kelce's.

It's ok if they are....say....Mecole Hardman. That's fine.

McLaurin, we can agree on.

I'm sure Reid would have loved Metcalf's amazing route running ability though. /s

Well, McLaurin will be a Chief here soon enough so don't worrk about it.

But/for the Hill situation I'm betting we draft McLaurin. It just made too much sense.

Shit happens sometimes.

Man, I have this same feeling too.

Something tells me we’re going to trade for him.

If I'm a WR I just am not signing an extension right now. I'm going to the market.

Because Godwin got hurt and STILL got paid.

So unless I'm getting top 5 WR money, I'm playing out my contract and getting to FA. The market is just way too hot for them right now.

And I'm not giving up draft capital for someone I'm just gonna have to trade again in a year. Especially not when I still don't have Brown's LTC done so I need to ensure that I have my franchise tag free next season.

The idea that Metcalf came into the NFL not being able to run routes was always stupid. Was he stiff and somewhat limited in route tree? Sure.

But he ran 4 routes at an elite level coming in.

Ruggs, who was the 1st WR off the board in his year ran one great route.

Metcalf was not a West Coast WR coming out of the draft.

And who the **** is talking about Ruggs?

If you could get him to take Godwin's deal, I'd think that works out.

Trade Tyreek and take the picks and money from him and turn that into Josh Allen and McLaurin.

Done deal.

Are we just never going to pay a quality WR top money? Juju is going to want to get paid too, we can’t keep giving FAs 1-year prove it deals. Eventually they’ll have to figure something out and give Mahomes a stable #1.

It’s either throw darts or pay the proven vet. Not sure Veach wants to gamble with a rookie when he’s paying Mahomes 500 milly. They can figure it out. Go get McLaurin.

Theoretically, yes. Keep churning thru the WR's and leave it up to Patrick and Andy to make them work.

He gets the big contract. Thems the breaks.

I'm okay with paying a top WR around $20 million a season but that requires constant churning of the WRs outside of him. That and only if that WR earning $20 million is worth it. I'm not paying Christian Kirk $20 million.

One I don't think we've seen the best out of CEH but this season will tell the story. I don't believe we picked the wrong running back unless he can't kick the injury prone moniker but i think he can. Everyone underestimates CEH and that's fine he knows it. He admitted coming into camp underweight because he lost wait after his gall bladder surgery during offseason. Ok I'm not making that as an excuse but it probably didn't help him. He did come on strong in the playoffs a lot stronger than Johnathan Taylor how many TD rushing yards he get?

CEH had a hell of a good rookie season and everyone loved him then the next season fumbles the ball for the first time in NFL and he gets dogged on. He wasn't at 100% and coach should have held him out first 6 games.

It wasn't a mistake to pick CEH for our #32 pick he just has to stay healthy but you do the splits getting tackled and see how that feels. He was running over teams in his rookie year and before he got hurt talk of OROTY. So now his third year i have higher expectations and he will come though of course this offensive line it's not going be hard for him to look good when he get to the second wave of tacklers. At the time of the draft RB was our biggest need even if you don't draft running backs in the first round.

This is the kind of play we should expect out of CEH he has it in him just need him for the season.

<img src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21954934/Clyde_Edwards_Helaire___lead_block_and_pries_hand_5.gif" alt="Opponent Preview: Kansas City running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire - Buffalo Rumblings"/>

It ABSOLUTELY was a mistake drafting CEH at #32. There's nothing we can do about it now.

You can get a running back that does what CEH does in the 3rd/4th round of every draft. Every year.

Its not like they werent going to pay BIG money to Tyreek, they were.

IF they trade for Mclaurin, let him play out this year and if it works they will pay him. Id be all for that. Mclaurin is awesome and wasted in Washington.

I think he would be so happy to be on a winning team and having Patrick be his QB that he wouldnt demand top money to stay on this team.

Yes he will want to be paid but he also has seen the other side. The side Tyreek hasnt seen yet...

Mahomes had a say in that pick IIRC

SO!

Still a bad pick.

I would never be down with taking a 5'7 200lb running back with our first pick unless he was the second coming off Barry Sanders. CEH isn't in the same universe

I'm not opposed to taking an RB in the first and I don't believe you're excluded from taking another one high in the draft just because you overdrafted CEH. Unfornately or fortunately, however you look at it, there isn't an RB worth taking in the top half of this draft

Obviously, but does it fall on Veach?

Sure, but Godwin signed his deal coming off injury and before the market was re-set.

I don't think a healthy McLaurin signs that deal.

Oh, and the 'Tyreek Money' wouldn't pay for Allen and McLaurin. Especially not when Allen inevitably insists on a new deal of his own.

Yes.

Why wouldn't it?

Fine.

A first and a 2nd and new contracts for OBJ Allen and Terry. I still have 10 picks here in this draft.

There. Done.

Yes. Of course it does.

Pat is the QB. He's not in charge of personnel.

Yup.

This is the reality of having a top of the market QB. And there's no position on the field that a QB can do more to paper over than WR.

If your QB is making 1/4 of your cap and sacrifices have to be made somewhere to address that, then making them at the position where the QB can do the most to gap-fill makes all the sense in the world.

So yeah - you roster churn the position. You keep drafting them through.

I'm still hoping that they trade, or swap, picks for Shenault. I think a WR room that consists of Juju, MVS, Shenault, Hardman and a rookie in the first 3 rounds....plus another one late would do just fine.

You need Inmen to change his avatar.

He says things like "yeah, but is that Veach's fault?" and I think to myself 'man, when did Pest get stupid...' until I look at the actual handle instead of just skimming past the avatar.

Of all the potential red flags DK Metcalf had as a prospect, he'd also broken his ****ing neck in October of 2018.

He got the player Mahomes asked for, but okay.

Better? LMAO

I mean sure - if the GM's job is to just do what his star player says, I guess he should be absolved of any fault if it goes wrong then.

But I'm not entirely sure that's actually his job.

I just asked if it was all his fault because Mahomes had a say in that pick lol.

Never once said Veach wasn’t at fault.

I honestly don't think it makes as much sense as it seems to. If your QB makes 1/4 of your cap, then yes, sacrifices have to me made, but if you have an elite QB just give him every opportunity to continue to be elite, don't ask him to carry everything just because maybe he can.

If you have to make sacrifices then work back from areas you feel have a lower value/impact or where you can develop players like CB and do everything you can to limit any more Frank Clarks.

In a capped league, he wants the money, these the problems you have.

They obviously have money to spend but you can't just throw it around.

For starters, RB was absolutely not the Chiefs biggest need heading into the 2020 draft. They really needed another pass rusher and a X WR to replace Watkins. They should have drafted Tee Higgins all day long, he was 100% the best prospect on the board. Yetur Gross-Matos and A.J. Epenesa were also relatively highly thought of pass rushers that were available. All 3 were rated in the top 27 or so players by almost everyone and Higgins above the pass rushers by most.

Clyde wasn't even the 1st RB by almost everyone either and he was 3rd or 4th on plenty of boards. The Chiefs took an enormous shot in the dark on Clyde but he's proven for sure that Higgins should have been the pick and he shouldn't have been the first RB off the board either. At least he looks better than Gross Matos and Epenesa, so there's that, and I was really quite high on Epenesa.

As for trusting Veach to get a good DE and/or WR, yeah I'm on the fence there. Obviously, we haven't seen him really take anyone high in the draft at those positions. I like Hardman but that's kind of it when it comes to guys at either spot that have been solid or good picks.

His handing a relatively big contract to MVS certainly makes me question things more than his draft history.

All told, I have overall faith in his ability to recognize and acquire talent. So with that, I think he'll do what's necessary and get some good players in the process. He does have a propensity to grab some serious duds in the mix though.

Scantling's contract isn't actually all that "big".

What is this "big contract" that you speak of?

He basically has an out after the first year if MVS isn't working out in this offense. If he is....then his cap hit in 2023 is $11 million which isn't that big compared to what other WRs are getting.

MVS's contract is still far too big for what he's shown. Even if you cut him after this year, that means this year cost you $8.88 million. Why on Earth pay that for a guy that has struggled to break 30 receptions?

He's a guy that I'd have expected to make $2 million at best, PER.

The last couple of years, it feels like the Chiefs have been forced to throw the plan out of the window and just "react" sometimes, which in some ways is a failing by Veach but in other ways, I like what he has achieved given the circumstance.

For example, no way the Chiefs could have known they would need to replace both tackles going into 2021. If the Devante Adams deal gets done right on opening day of free agency, or if the Chiefs knew that they could not afford Tyreek pre free agency, I think our WR group looks different, better than this and does not include MVS.

When you look at some of the deals given out though (Kirk), I don't think the MVS one is that bad...

Well just saying "Draft/develop cheap players and don't spend money on bad ones" is the easy answer, yes.

But let's assume a reasonable amount of draft busts and dead money here.

If you have a 'representative' amount of chaff elsewhere on the roster, you're gonna need to cut corners here and there. It's just the nature of a cap league.

And if/when that is the case, I'm going to do it at WR. Because Patrick Mahomes can't do shit to keep the opposing WR from getting open - but he can throw HIS open. So I'm not going to cut corners on DBs when I don't have a force multiplier that can make them better than they are.

Now if I had Ed Reed back there, I'd tailor my response somewhat. But speaking generally, you have to focus more cap/capital on areas that Mahomes CAN'T directly impact while letting his talent raise the level of those players who play positions he CAN impact.

Yeah, that little streak there where our first picks of the draft were Speaks - Hardman - Clyde is gonna sting for awhile.

All you can do is learn from it and move on.

Well those are some ridiculous expectations considering the WR market.