Categories: Kansas City ChiefsPaul Pulley

A Chiefs Mock Draft in the Style of GM Veach

A Chiefs Mock Draft

in the Style of GM Veach

by Paul Pulley | February 25, 2019

In the 2018 draft, Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach appeared to target certain players and then conduct a series of trades in order to acquire those players. What I have attempted to do is to make a very short list of players that I would be satisfied with the Chiefs drafting, and then orchestrating trades in order to select some of those draftees: a Chiefs mock draft in the style of GM Veach.

In years past, I have always been of the mindset to not trade draft picks, to hold at the original positions and select the best player available so, this is a first for me and a whole different attitude was needed. Laddie stated on his last Mock Monday thread that we don’t normally like getting into mocks that involve trading, but in this day and age, trading is so common place in the NFL draft, that teams that don’t make trades are in the minority. During the 2018 draft, there were over 70 trades involving 27 teams, and this didn’t include any pre-draft trades.

The first order of business was setting some parameters.

First, I used a combination of CBSSports prospect rankings and Drafttek’s big board, averaging the rankings to find where a player might be drafted, and decided no player could be picked more than 4 spots after that average. Selecting sooner would just be considered a “reach.” I also used the trade value chart (available at Drafttek as well as many other places) in order to set trade boundaries within reasonable equivalent values.
My second order of business was to determine team needs. Of course, defense won out here, with secondary being the highest need, followed by defensive tackle.

Looking Over the Needs

Cornerback is the largest need currently of the Chiefs, not only in quantity but in quality. Safety is in better shape as far as quantity, quality is questionable.
The Chiefs currently have Derrick Nnadi and Xavier Williams to man the 1-tech, but with Allen Bailey entering free agency, and with Chris Jones playing only about ⅔ of the snaps, a solid backup at the 3-tech is a “need.”
As most know, I have been clamoring for a decent number two TE for years, and since stone-hands Harris is once again a free agent, it’s past time to move on.

Setting up the Trades

Next came the exercise of attempting to orchestrate trades in order to not only maximize draft capital, but to obtain the highest quality players at the greatest positions of need. While this turned out to be a lot of fun, it was more time consuming than just using one of the draft simulation games (e.g. Fanspeak or First-Pick). Advantages to this were players had a set value within a limited range and there were players available to draft that aren’t on each of the various games.

The Final Draft Selections

After making a series of trades, I ended up with six draft picks. Their rankings are as follows:

The Chiefs currently* have 7 draft picks

29 (R1, P29)
61 (R2, P29)
63 (R2, P31)
92 (R3, P28)
156 (R5, P29)
187 (R6, P28)
192 (R7, P2)

Note: *Since compensatory picks had not yet been announced at the time of this writing, I didn’t factor those in and just used the 7 draft selections currently available to the Chiefs.

In order to make these selections, I had to make several trades. Keep in mind that when trading for multiple selections, the trade partner has to own all of the picks, it’s not just a matter of matching values. The trades are listed below:

Trade pick 29 (R1, P29) to Cincinnati for picks 42 (R2, P10) and pick 72 (R3, P8)
Trade pick 61 (R2, P29) and pick 63 (R2, P31) to San Francisco
for pick 36 (R2, P4) and pick 162 (R6, P3)
Trade pick 72 (R3, P8) and pick 156 (R5, P29) to Oakland for pick 66 (R3, P2)
Trade pick 162 (R6, P3) and P187 (R6, P28) to the New York Giants for pick 132 (R5, P5)

The value received for pick 29 might seem high, but in most instances, a team has to “overpay” in order to get back up into round 1. A 1st round selection has the added value of the 5th year option on their rookie contract.

I ended up with 6 selections:

36 (R2, P4)
42 (R2, P10)
66 (R3, P2)
92 (R3, P28)
132 (R5, P5)
192 (R7, P2)

The Players That Were Selected

Round 2, Pick 4; DT Jerry Tillery, Notre Dame, 6-6 and 305 pounds. Tall, long and powerful. Had 17.5 TFL and 11.5 sacks his final two seasons. Should be a great compliment to Chris Jones.

Round 2, Pick 10; CB AmanI Oruwariye, Penn St., 6-1 and 203 pounds. Had 8 Ints in college. Good height and length. Plays well in both man and zone. Plays smart and has good ball skills. His biggest weakness is tackling, not the greatest versus the run, but we’re used to that. Possibly an immediate starter.

Round 3, Pick 2; TE Kaden Smith, Stanford, 6-5 and 252 pounds. A decent route runner with good ball skills and good hands. Not a great blocker, but that can be taught. Not very fast but has wiggle and can get open. Does a good job when fighting for the ball. In my opinion, he needs better conditioning. Would make a great second TE and possible future replacement for Kelce.

Round 3, Pick 28; FS Mike Bell, Fresno St., 6-3 and 203 pounds. Underclassman with 164 tackles and 4 INTs his final two seasons. Good ball skills with a quick reaction time. Excellent tackler and isn’t afraid to deliver a hit. He appears to have decent speed, but his combine will be interesting.

Round 5, Pick 5; DE Jalen Jelks, Oregon, 6-6 and 245 pounds. Described as “wicked quick”. Appears slight of frame but plays with plenty of power. Is very good as a pass rusher but also good versus the run. Is raw but has a high upside.

Round 7, Pick 2; WR Jalen Hurd, Baylor, 6-4 and 225 pounds. Hurd is definitely a project, but with tons of potential. He played his first 3 seasons as a RB at Tennessee, rushing for over 1200 yards as a Sophomore. As a Junior he lost his starting gig to Alvin Kamara and ended up transferring to Baylor. Because of NCAA transfer rules, he sat out 2017 and played last year as a wide receiver. Hurd has excellent hands and YAC ability is good. He’s not afraid to work the middle of the field and after years as a RB, doesn’t shy from contact. Will need a lot of work on route running, but could make a good, large slot receiver. Plus he will be another good option for jet sweeps.

GM Veach Style Mock Conclusion

This was a fun exercise and a little different take on doing a mock, requiring quite a bit of time and thought process. I went into this with Oruwariye and Tillery more or less “set in stone” and a number of options behind them. In doing a handful of mocks using the online games, Tillery has been available mid to late 2nd round, so I was caught off guard when both ranking services had him at 33. This was why I was comfortable picking him 3 spots later, at 36, and is also what led to me finishing with just 6 picks.

As you can see, I still ended up with 4 picks in the top 100. I also finished using only 2 of the Chiefs original selections. I lost the late 6th round pick, but moved up 24 places in the 5th round for what I thought was better value.

For those of you who enjoy doing mocks, you might give this method a try. I’m actually looking forward to doing this again when I have time, which won’t be until after the combine, so that should work out okay.

Paul Pulley — ArrowheadOne

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