Nate Taylor had a barn burner of about 5 minutes on the Time's Ours podcast, giving us as good a look inside the Chiefs draft room as there exists from an independent source.
He (irritatingly) summarizes the Chiefs reactions to several picks:
At 21, Q Johnston goes to the Chargers: the draft room goes "eesh"
At 22, Zay goes to Baltimore: "damn"
At 27, A. Harrison to the Jags:
At 28, Murphy goes to the Bengals: sign of relief
But the one that hurt them the most was the Cowboys selection of Mazi Smith.
The Chiefs didn't bring in Mazi, they went to Michigan to meet with him, which Taylor says his agent must have leveraged to see if he could get a team to pick him earlier (as agents do).
What made Veach smarter than all of us, Taylor says, is that these flashy, rules-threatening practice workouts where receiver after receiver works out in flashy, social-media-friendly snippets in Texas with Pat Mahomes, in an effort to get some misdirection going in the minds of other players (and most of the fans of this fan base -- okay, including me, alright?).
They felt that Mazi next to Jones would be "special." And when Mazi went to Dallas, it got very tense in the room, and the Chiefs draft room started seriously flirting with trading down at that point.
They were satisfied and perfectly happy with taking FAU, but he was not at the top of their board.
Much to my chagrin, there was no mention in the podcast about Nolan Smith, which leads me to believe he truly was not on their radar as a scheme fit. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Nate had also been trumpeting that the Chiefs were going to take Smith so it was kinda in his best interests to say "See! I told ya!"
I just don't think he's very useful at all during draft season and that's really all there is to it. He took a lot of heat online for his mock where he decided to trade up for Smith (which...they would've needed to do) and so he may just want to feel vindicated.
I dunno - I don't put a ton of stock in it. I just don't see them doing that for a DT unless they thought Smith was a real monster. And if they did think that, they'd have probably overpaid a bit to get there. It's EXACTLY what they did with the McDuffie deal. They paid a premium to get a guy they really wanted.
They didn't do that here. I think that says more than any reporting from Taylor could.
To be fair we don't know what the demand was from other teams. I think Veach said they looked at going up in his presser, or did I imagine it? I guess we don't know how seriously but I don't think it's impossible they saw Smith as an elite DT to create havoc with Jones and when that wasn't on the table they pivoted to just getting a run stuffer late. Doesn't sound the most likely but not beyond the realms of possibility [Reply]
Originally Posted by The Franchise:
I also don't believe this bullshit about Veach letting the teams know who he's trading up for. What would be the benefit in that?
Somebody on Twitter posted a Q&A excerpt from Veach where he literally said he doesn't do this. [Reply]
Or Veach just called to trade up and Dallas refused bc they loved Mazi Smith and thought if they traded back he wouldn’t be there and didn’t wanna miss out [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
Or Veach just called to trade up and Dallas refused bc they loved Mazi Smith and thought if they traded back he wouldn’t be there and didn’t wanna miss out
Which would make the report that the Chiefs called and said "hey Dallas, we'd like to make a trade, so we can select Mazi Smith!" with Dallas saying "no way, that's who we want!" bullshit. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
Apparently we called around about trading up for Gibbs per Breer.
Huh?
That makes ZERO sense. We wouldn't have even started making calls like that until he fell into the teens because anything higher requires next year's first. We're not giving up 2 firsts for a RB.
And he went 12th overall. He was gone WELL before we'd have made any inquiries about moving up for him.
Originally Posted by staylor26:
Which would make the report that the Chiefs called and said "hey Dallas, we'd like to make a trade, so we can select Mazi Smith!" with Dallas saying "no way, that's who we want!" bullshit.
I mean, if I'm an opposing GM, I'm gonna ask.
It's a negotiation. At some point the guy on the other side is gonna say "Hey, tell me who you're gonna take and if it's not the guy I want then...."
Because I'm betting there ARE times these GMs will give up that sort of information to put a deal over the top. Not every time, not as a matter of course, but on occasion.
I don't doubt at all that the question got asked, nor do I doubt that Veach elected not to answer. And that is what yielded Dallas's high inflated response. "Well if you're not gonna tell me who it is, there's a guy I really like here and I'm not gonna risk losing that guy blind unless you surrender more than you're offering..."
It absolutely checks out as possible, even likely, in the course of these fairly rapidfire negotiations. Hell, the guy could always be lying to you anyway. And you'll remember that sort of thing next time he calls. [Reply]
That makes ZERO sense. We wouldn't have even started making calls like that until he fell into the teens because anything higher requires next year's first. We're not giving up 2 firsts for a RB.
And he went 12th overall. He was gone WELL before we'd have made any inquiries about moving up for him.
That's dumb.
I took it as calling around before the draft started? [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I mean, if I'm an opposing GM, I'm gonna ask.
It's a negotiation. At some point the guy on the other side is gonna say "Hey, tell me who you're gonna take and if it's not the guy I want then...."
Because I'm betting there ARE times these GMs will give up that sort of information to put a deal over the top. Not every time, not as a matter of course, but on occasion.
I don't doubt at all that the question got asked, nor do I doubt that Veach elected not to answer. And that is what yielded Dallas's high inflated response. "Well if you're not gonna tell me who it is, there's a guy I really like here and I'm not gonna risk losing that guy blind unless you surrender more than you're offering..."
It absolutely checks out as possible, even likely, in the course of these fairly rapidfire negotiations. Hell, the guy could always be lying to you anyway. And you'll remember that sort of thing next time he calls.
That's the thing though, according to the Dallas reporter, the Chiefs told them they wanted Mazi Smith.
And that conflicts with Veach saying he doesn't/wouldn't do that. [Reply]
