The Kansas City Chiefs made a move during the first night of the 2022 NFL draft, trading up to select highly-touted Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie.
It was an unexpected move, but one that immediately shook up the draft. Chiefs GM Brett Veach is the man at the forefront of decisions, and he was beaming with optimism while speaking about his move up for McDuffie.
“With our first pick – it’s a little funny – every year, we go through what we think is every scenario possible,” Veach said. “We didn’t go over (Trent) McDuffie’s scenario, I don’t think we thought he’d be there. Some of the trades, even the player trades that happened today, I think, impacted us.”
Ahead of the draft, Veach explained that the team had between 16 and 18 first-round grades. McDuffie was one of those first-round grades and one that the team wholeheartedly didn’t think they had a shot at drafting. The Chiefs didn’t bring him in for a top-30 visit. They didn’t even send a scout to the University of Washington pro day.
“Obviously when you make a move, you’re going to do that for a guy you have in that range,” Veach explained. “We were able to do that. Every year you get 16‐to‐18 names like that. I think the fact that we were aggressive to some degree tips your hand on what you thought of McDuffie. We certainly thought he was one of those players and that’s why we made that move.”
The need for an impact cornerback was a priority on the Chiefs’ draft plans heading into Thursday night. The desire to get their guy forced Veach’s hand to pull the trigger on a trade. Veach followed his McDuffie pick with the selection of Purdue standout EDGE rusher George Karlaftis at No. 30. He spoke more about his draft board strategy and the importance of evaluating a talent’s fit with the roster.
“Sometimes when you’re going in there trying to address a specific position – obviously we wanted to add some depth on the defensive line, and we wanted to add depth in the secondary – that all worked out,” said Veach. “I would say that’s usually not the case. We knew early on that there was good depth at the d‐line position. The corner position was a little different for us because when you go through this process, and you talk about how they’d be implemented in our scheme and the interviews and the playbook stuff and the medical stuff, sometimes your numbers aren’t as deep as you would believe, especially before the whole process starts. We were a little concerned not picking again until 29, and McDuffie is definitely gone. Depending on what you do there, with tomorrow (not picking until) 50, we better just make our move now. I think we were patient, and when we had the opportunity, we made that move. I think he was a guy that, when the night started, if someone had asked me to make a prediction on our first pick of the night, I probably (would not have said) the guys that I picked. Again, we’re just really excited to add him to the roster.”
The Chiefs are on schedule with their plans and will seek to add more talent on Day 2 when the draft resumes on Friday night.
