As we’ve tracked the Kansas City Chiefs’ top-30 visits this offseason, the most common question we’ve received is the following: “Do these visits actually matter?”
For Chiefs GM Brett Veach, they’re important for a number of reasons. The first is the fact-gathering on players who they’ve simply not had a lot of time with during the pre-draft process. Those can be guys who didn’t get All-Star game invites or prospects who weren’t invited to the combine.
“Most of these guys we’re bringing in weren’t invited to the combine,” Veach said. “The great part about the combine is you get to interview the guys, you get to work them out, but they go through pretty extensive medical (evaluations). The guys that don’t get invited, you don’t really have anything, you don’t have any updated imaging on them or MRIs, x-rays, what have you. So, all these guys that we think are draftable prospects, I think, ‘First, let’s bring them in.’”
Beyond getting measurements, testing, and medical information for non-combine invites, this also serves as an opportunity for the team to bring in players who they think they like and want to get to know better.
“But then there’s also a handful of guys that we like and maybe we just didn’t get a great first impression on when we met with them at the combine,” Veach explained. “So, we like to spend that time to just cross our T’s and dot our I’s. And there’s been times where we bring guys in and we weren’t comfortable with them (during the) pre-combine process, weren’t comfortable with them at the combine, but we liked the tape so much, let’s make sure one more time. And usually it just kind of solidifies that thought.”
Some players, however, have been able to change the team’s mind during a pre-draft visit. Veach even had a perfect example from last year’s draft class.
“But there’s times – I think Jaylen Watson last year, he was a guy that I think that we met at the combine and we weren’t sure that this would be a great fit (for both sides), but we liked him and we wanted to bring him back in,” Veach said. “And we had the combine medical on him already, but he was a guy that we brought back into the facility last year and both my staff and the coaches kind of did a 180 on him. Like this kid just – you just take him out of the combine environment, he had a chance to kind of just relax and he’s been through a lot in his career trajectory. But that was a great example there where I don’t think we were comfortable drafting him in any round after the combine and we brought him in here and it was just a completely different story. We fell in love with the kid and we were super excited to draft him and he’s done a great job for us.”
Essentially, top-30 visits serve as another opportunity to leave an impression, both good and bad. They can be the difference between a prospect being a late-round draft pick or going undrafted. Veach says it can be the difference between a prospect standing pat and being removed from your draft board entirely.
“So, it’s one of those things, just let’s be sure on the guys that you like,” Veach said. “And it can go in both ways – it can potentially take a guy off the board but could also put a guy back on the board.”
