Chiefs GM Brett Veach explains strategy for player evaluation during 2020 offseason

Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach has his work cut out for him this offseason. He already navigated massive contract extensions for star players like Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones and Travis Kelce, but there are still challenges ahead related to the unique structure of the 2020 offseason.

Veach joined Mitch Holthus and Matt McMullen on “Training Camp Live” this morning. Veach was asked by Holthus about how the lack of minicamp, OTAs and the preseason will adjust the way the team plans to evaluate players this offseason. Not just players in Kansas City either, but those on rosters across the league.

“It’s challenging,” Veach began. “Everyone, obviously, is in the same predicament. We’ve done a really good job of scouring through so much preseason tape. You look at guys like Demone Harris or Charvarius Ward, Alex Brown — who was our active roster for the Super Bowl — Antonio Hamilton this year. All of these guys, we first caught wind of during their preseason tape. So it puts us at a little bit of a disadvantage, just because I feel our personnel staff, led by Mike Borgonzi and Tim Terry, they do such a good job of combing through the pro tape. It’s a little bit of a disadvantage for us, because I think we were really ahead of the game in that regard.”

Veach felt the Chiefs were ahead of the curve when it came to evaluating preseason tape and acquiring players during roster cuts. They traded for Charvarius Ward ahead of the 2018 season. They added guys like Alex Brown and Demone Harris during the 2019 season. But the tool that allowed those things to happen — preseason tape — isn’t an option this year. So what will be the adjustment that Veach and his staff make to account for this unique feature of the 2020 offseason? They’ll treat it a little bit more like they do the 2020 NFL Draft.

“Before the Combine, we have all that college prep,” Veach explained. “We watch all that college tape to get our draft board right. I almost feel like we’ll go through another wave of that before the cutdown date (Sept. 6). Since we don’t have pro preseason tape we’re going to have to go back and watch the 2019 college tape one more time to get our emergency board right. We’ll probably have to go back and watch some of these young guys in preseason a year or two years ago. So it will be a little bit different process, but I think we’ll work hard to get it right.”

Players that the Chiefs add to the practice squad after roster cuts, well, it could come down to their college tape and the evaluations the staff did on those players ahead of the draft. It might not reveal the same information as the team would get with pro tape from the preseason, but it’s better than blindly throwing darts. At the same time, the lack of preseason tape this year creates an advantage for the team when it comes to the 80-man offseason roster.

“One of the advantages this year, we do feel like we have a lot of talent on this roster,” Veach said. “We might not be able to keep all of that talent. You guys know how it works. There’s a lot of times we get to the third and forth preseason game and some of these young guys, maybe they struggled early on, maybe they didn’t do too much the first two weeks of preseason and then, ‘Boom.’ All of a sudden it all comes together in the fourth preseason game when your roster is kind of decided. Then you’re just hoping and praying that they’ll make it through the waiver wire. Now, on the plus side, the tape won’t be available and if it does happen, we’ll be able to sneak some guys through and continue to work and develop them.”

There’s a positive and a negative to the lack of the preseason. While the Chiefs might not be able to poach talent from other teams using preseason tape, the hope is that they’ll be able to retain several of their own players during roster cuts. Then those players can develop on the practice squad throughout the course of the season.

While the process will be different for Veach and his staff this year, the hope is that the end result is the same — finding young talent that can compete, create depth and grow with the team.