One stat that is simultaneously "wow, Veach!" and "c'mon, Veach"

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Wilson8

We should not blame Brett Veach for either LB's performance.

Anthony Hitchens was a 4th round Dallas Cowboy draft pick out of Iowa. When we signed Anthony, he was a 26-year-old, that had averaged 76 tackles per season playing for the Cowboys. His first year with KC he had 135 tackles. Hitchens had a reputation as a hard-hitting football player around the league. You have to pay money for good football players and that is what Brett did to acquire Hitchens.

In the last 2 to 3 seasons Anthony Hitchens became less concerned about tackling and was more about self-preservation. After a number of collisions it happens to some of the best players.

I wish it had a happier ending, but it did not.

I don't think that the Jermaine Carter that we saw this preseason was the same LB that people saw last year for Carolina. He was two steps slow and never seemed to have the desire to be playing football.

It cost us $1.77M but Brett and Andy knew that Carter was not ready to play here. The Chiefs moved on and that is a sign of good management.

I think we should have probably foreseen that Hitchens was not an excellent fit in this system. The system he played in in Dallas was much different than Sutton's 3-4.

I don't disagree that you had to pay big money, but the contract we signed had no outs for years. We put our eggs in that basket and it absolutely did not work -- though we did win a Super Bowl managing him.

His tackles were Donnie Edwards tackles. He rarely did effective run fits and usually wondered behind the LOS and let the blockers get to him. Sutton's system was a bad fit.

And then Spags came on and mitigated the damage some for a couple of years.

Nevertheless, Veach made up for this really bad signing by shattering the draft at LB. He's made three high-round investments at LB and by the end of the year it may end up being a Top 3 unit -- I'm not kidding.

So, anyway. I thought the stat in the OP was really wow.

[Sorce]

By request here are the % of players drafted in the last five years still on the active roster pic.twitter.com/JOxhKF1VmU

— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) September 2, 2022