The Chiefs have won 3 Super Bowls in the last five seasons under GM Brett Veach. A lot of things have gone right for the Chiefs in these past few years, with a part of their success coming from the right people being in the right place. However, while they did win a Super Bowl last season, the team wasn’t exactly the most dominant. And the GM admitted how that could’ve been potentially an oversight on his part.
Advertisement
During the regular season, Mahomes had to carry most of the offense by himself, with the o-line being inconsistent sometimes, and downright mediocre other times. The Chiefs lost multiple games due to miscues caused by the receiving corps. Kansas’s offensive struggles were glaringly obvious to even the most casual of football fans last year. But could it have been avoided if they hadn’t passed on DK Metcalf back in 2019?
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN…. #Chiefs GM Brett Veach says his biggest draft regret was not drafting star wide receiver DK Metcalf.
“Looking back on DK, there were areas we weren’t sure on. But there were none that should have prompted us to bypass him.”
(Via Fox Sports) pic.twitter.com/7f0REpN71w
— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) April 19, 2024
By Veach’s own admission, the Chiefs missed an opportunity when they didn’t draft Metcalf. He revealed on “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour.“:
“Sometimes you don’t take guys and fans do the mock drafts, and they go through them years later and are like, ‘We should’ve taken this guy or that guy,’” Veach said. “But at the time, a player could’ve been off your board because you had character concerns or an injury concern. I think, looking back on DK, there were areas that we weren’t sure on, but there were none maybe that should’ve prompted us to bypass (him). I think that’s one player that sticks out.”
Metcalf has emerged as one of the best receivers in the league ever since the Seattle Seahawks drafted him in 2019. Since then, he has received Pro Bowl honors twice and posted 1000+ receiving yards. However, can we lament too much about this one miss, considering the Chiefs just won two consecutive Super Bowls?
What did Veach See in Mahomes in 2017?
Two years before Veach passed on DK Metcalf, he made a risky choice that is paying major dividends to this day. The Chiefs traded up to select Mahomes with the No. 10 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, making him the starter the very next year. Veach said,
“”We knew Pat had a ton of talent, can make any throw asked of him, super athletic, smart, but [he] didn’t have a lot of experience with some of the NFL blitz package stuff.”
So the strategy was to have Mahomes learn the ropes from Alex Smith and then hand him the reigns when the time was right. Veach said,
“It was just a great setup we had where we thought we can bring Pat in here and have him learn and see the game not only through Coach [Andy] Reid’s eyes but see it through Alex Smith’s eyes.”
Mahomes passed for 50 touchdowns in his first season as a full-time starter, yet he hasn’t surpassed the mark of 41 touchdowns in any regular season since then. It can be hypothesized that this would not have been the case if he had Metcalf I’m his corner. But hindsight is 20/20 and as Veach himself pointed out, big misses help you grow.
