Getty A Kansas City Chiefs fan cheers his team on at the 2022 NFL draft.
There’s no better feeling than when a smart plan falls into place, and it feels like that’s exactly what happened for general manager Brett Veach and the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2022 NFL draft.
A perfect example is a wide receiver talent like Skyy Moore dropping to Veach in round two, months after the front office decided to move on from Tyreek Hill. It’s almost like the Chiefs needed an expensive car part to keep driving and elected to push off fixing it. Then April comes along and voilà, a replacement part becomes available at a fraction of the cost.
Whether we’re talking about cars or football teams, that’s just good business, and few franchises have managed the same success as KC in recent years.
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Eisen: ‘[Moore] Would Be Incredible in Kansas City’s Offense, but They Have Tyreek Hill’
During a post-draft edition of “The Rich Eisen Show,” the NFL Network television personality listed his top-five “sneaky good” picks and Moore ranked second for the entire draft.
Eisen explained: “I thought about this when he was at the combine running his routes and going through his drills. I thought to myself, he would be incredible in Kansas City’s offense — but they have Tyreek Hill — not even imagining in a million years that Tyreek Hill was not coming back to the Kansas City Chiefs… Now, Tyreek Hill’s gone and they drafted the kid in the second round.”
It’s almost like the long-time NFL pundit couldn’t believe this all occurred, and how could anyone disagree? Outside of Veach, head coach Andy Reid and the front office, how many people knew that Hill was getting traded a week or even two days before it happened?
The answer is no one, and Moore was not a popular mock candidate up until he was dealt.
Sure, the rookie’s skill set makes perfect sense for Reid’s offense, but they didn’t need another Hill until they made it so. They didn’t reach on Moore in round one either — and they could have. Yep, this wide receiver swap was executed to perfection.
Eisen hammered it home: “Tyreek Hill, 5’10”, 185. Skyy Moore’s, 5’10”, 195. Look, I’m not saying he’s Tyreek Hill, I’m just saying he’s got the height [and] weight of Tyreek Hill and he’s got a big game too. I think Andy Reid is going to plug him in and we’re going to see how good he can be… I can’t wait to see how he’s going to do in this offense this fall.”
For what it’s worth, Eisen’s only sneakier selection was running back James Cook to the Buffalo Bills.
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Chiefs ‘Altered’ Plan as the Market Shifted
Speaking of “The Rich Eisen Show,” Veach joined it on May 13. When asked what his first priorities were this offseason, the GM answered pretty candidly.
“This year was a little bit more overall — we need to get better on both ends,” Veach began. “Our plan initially in the offseason was — we had Orlando [Brown] on the tag — and we wanted to take care of Tyreek and then kind of address the defense. And then the way the market shifted with the receivers and the way the market shifted with the veteran defensive linemen, we kind of altered our course of action and decided to go through the draft, almost entirely.”
That led to a more detailed explanation of the Hill blockbuster.
He continued: “The game plan for the offseason was to get more depth and talent on the defensive side and see if we [could] take care of Tyreek… We made an initial framework for the contract and we felt things were kind of trending in the right direction — all big contracts take a few weeks and some take a few months — but we left there and we felt like we were in a pretty good place, and then as you know the wide receiver market just exploded.”
“We were looking at a situation where, if we wanted to acquire let’s say a veteran defensive end — and where that market went — we would do so but then it would be very difficult to do Tyreek,” Veach admitted. “How could we sign a veteran defensive end to a contract like that and not address Tyreek’s situation right? That would have been a problem.”
Veach concluded that because of the Brown tag and the pricier needs on defense, the Chiefs’ front office decided to circle back to a last-ditch possibility, trading their superstar wideout. In the end, that’s what they did.