It’s July when most beat writers take their vacation but of course the Kansas City Chiefs are not making that easy on the local writers after firing John Dorsey and hiring GM Brett Veach during the supposed vacation time for those around the NFL. The KC Star’s Terez Paylor recorded a video with five things to know about Veach. Since we won’t hear from Veach for two more weeks - his introductory presser is scheduled for July 24 - I thought this was good information to know about the Chiefs new GM.
Watch Terez’s video here or else I transcribed it below. All these reasons make sense, especially the last one.
“The first thing I hear about when I ask people around the league about Brett Veach is he’s a strong evaluator of talent. He’s well-informed. If you enjoyed the way the Chiefs have drafted under John Dorsey, good news. I believe Brett is going to continue a lot o those methodologies and a lot of those ways of drafting players. I believe there will be a continued focus on athleticism, along with the other intangibles. Keep that in mind. I think that John has taught Brett well and I do think he will continue a lot of things.
Full coverage on Chiefs new GM Brett Veach
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“The other thing I hear about is he’s a high energy guy. This is a guy very interested in football, loves football, has a passion for it and does a lot of his best work out on the road evaluating talent and that’s something they need to complement Andy Reid who obviously has a lot of power here. But, you know, you need an evaluator in the Chiefs GM position and I think Brett Veach fills that role.
“The other thing is he’s a strong communicator. I think this is important, especially considering what my sources told me for the story I wrote a couple weeks ago explaining why John Dorsey was fired. He’s a good communicator. He communicates well and has strong opinions. In the draft room he doesn’t back down off of his opinions. That’s not always a given because when front office executives gather to talk about prospects, it’s a bit of a hot seat because they’re going to ask for your opinion on a player and you’re going to be challenged. I’m told Brett is not a guy who’s going to back down in that challenge. He believes in his opinions and he should because he has a strong reputation as an evaluator of talent.
“The other thing I hear is he’s already respected by his support staff. All the people who are going to be working around him and working under him, he’s worked with those guys for the last four years and he’s already respected by those guys as an evaluator of talent. This brings a level of continuity which is important considering the way the Chiefs have won the past four years. Had you hired somebody from the outside that would have changed things because you always bring in your own people, you always bring in your own guys. By not doing that they can keep the group together that helped build a team that’s been so good the past four years.
“Last thing I hear about Brett Veach is there’s a high comfort level with the head coach. I think this really made a difference because one of the other candidates was Scott Fitterer who works in Seattle and also has a very strong reputation as an evaluator of talent and some people told me he might be more well rounded than Veach but I think the important thing to remember here is that whoever is the GM of the Chiefs is going to work with Andy Reid. Veach basically owes his NFL career to Andy Reid in a lot of ways because Andy brought him on in Philadelphia. There’s a strong comfort level, a strong trust level and you can keep some continuity so in the end I think that made the difference.”