Brett Veach: How Tyreek Hill trade may affect Chiefs offense and their long-term outlook

The Chiefs’ draft grades from national pundits were mostly good but there were some who thought Kansas City should have found a replacement for wide receiver Tyreek Hill.

But is it possible to find someone who can replicate the special skills that Hill possesses? Hill, who was traded to the Miami Dolphins in March, was chosen for the Pro Bowl in each of his six seasons with the Chiefs and was a three-time All-Pro.

Chiefs general manager Brett Veach was on “The Rich Eisen Show” on Friday and acknowledged that Hill’s departure will take something away from the Chiefs offense.

But Veach also noted opposing teams had adjusted their defenses using shell coverages to limit Hill’s impact, and the Chiefs offense could be just fine in the end.

“It would be a little crazy to think that as you mentioned, when you take away one of the most dynamic players over the last decade ... from the offense, some of our play style will certainly look a little different,” Veach said. “However, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. I think certainly when Pat came on the scene as a first-year starter in the RPO and the vertical game, teams were slow to catch up to that and we were able to just kind of rip up and down the field, score a lot of points. And there’s been a lot of adjustments and coverage looks and now some of them we’ve seen over and over.

“But I think the cool thing about this is you know when you have someone like (quarterback) Pat Mahomes and you have the creativity of an Andy Reed and Eric Bieniemy, I think it’s exciting. New challenges are always exciting. So will we look exactly the same? No but we said this many times, there are multiple ways to score points and move the ball down the field.

“So I think the approach this offseason is we’re gonna have some core fundamental principles that we always have and we’ll look to execute them. But I think it’s an exciting new challenge to get this new core of receivers ... and you may see a bit more running but you may see a little bit more short game stuff, but I think it’s exciting. I think the chess game is always exciting. I think we have really good chess players in Andy and Pat and I think it’s going to be something that they’re going to embrace and yeah, will it look the same? No, but I think it can be very close to as successful.”

How Chiefs offseason plan changed

Veach said after the Chiefs lost the AFC Championship Game, the priorities were an extension for Hill, a new contract for left tackle Orlando Brown and help on defense.

But then the wide receiver market went nuts. Jacksonville gave Christian Kirk a four-year deal that could be worth $84 million, and the Raiders topped that after trading for Davante Adams.

Veach realized even putting the franchise tag on Brown wouldn’t allow the Chiefs to address the defense if Hill got a competitive contract. So Veach talking things over with CEO/chairman Clark Hunt and Reid, and realized trading Hill to Miami for five draft picks over the 2022 and 2023 drafts might not be a bad thing.

In fact, Veach said it will allow the Chiefs to be active in free agency next year.

”It made sense that if you really wanted to add some weapons and to invest in multiple players and multiple positions, that this may be the best scenario for us,” Veach said of trading Hill. “Because as I mentioned, if you do Tyreek, it’s gonna be hard to sign some of these veteran defensive linemen, and it also puts you in a bind in years to come. And if you do the defensive linemen, you’d probably have to tell Tyreek we couldn’t do anything this year. Se would have never gone that direction.

“So after taking a step back and talking things through with Andy and with Clark , it just made sense for us to to entertain this trade and when we realized that we can get multiple picks, a 1, 2, 4, 4 and 6, that this would be a way to hit draft and receiver. Throw a ton of resources on the defensive side of the football, and then also infuse money back into the cap both in the short and long term. So that next year, we can be a player in free agency. So this route that we decided to take, it really opened up what we think are many avenues to improve the roster over the next few years.”

Impact of Hill deal for KC

Veach said signing Hill to a long-term deal would have had a ripple effect that could have been felt by the Chiefs the next few years.

Plus, sending Hill to Miami was a good deal for the player financially and for family reasons.

“So we kind of thought well, if we do this here we might be out of free agency the next two or three years,” Veach said. “Look, this game, it’s so hard to be good year in and year out and you just more than anything you have to have a roster that can handle the physicality of this game and the injuries. ... So when we thought about this opportunity long and hard and to infuse not just the picks but the cap space over the next few years, it just made a lot of sense to us and I think it worked out for both parties.

“I know that’s kind of a cliche and it sounds good, but I really do. I think that Miami has a chance to do some things with Tyreek and listen, he lives there and his family’s there and it was important for him to be there and that was a place he wanted to be so he deserved that and he certainly helped us reach heights that many thought were impossible over the years.

“I think he was deserving of that contract. And I was happy for him. And then like I said, I was just happy that we were able to get resources to help continue to build this thing for the next 5, 10 years. And I think that we’ve taken the right step, and it won’t be easy and we’re gonna have a lot of young guys play football for us this fall. There is going to be a transition period. But after the draft ended and from the time they’ve been here through the rookie minicamp, we’ve been certainly impressed with them and their attitudes. So we’re excited about getting this thing rolling.”

It was an interesting 20-minute conversation that covered a lot of topics, and you can watch it here.