KC Chiefs: Brett Veach deserves consideration for Executive of the Year

Let’s first take a look at the offseason Brett Veach had.

When people think of the offseason in the NFL, they mostly think of free agency and the draft. While it is true that those two components make up a big part of it, the thing that impresses me about Veach the most is the willingness to be ahead of the curve. That is easier said than done in the NFL.

The Kansas City Chiefs were coming off of a 12-4 season that saw them get the one seed in the AFC playoffs, and were an offsides penalty by Dee Ford away from getting to the Super Bowl. It would’ve been easy for Veach to ”run it back” with the same squad and try to replicate the success from last year’s team. He didn’t do that though. He took risks that may set up the most successful run in the history of the franchise.

The changes Veach made were mostly on the defensive side of the ball. We will get into the addition of players later, but the biggest change was at the foundation of the unit.

The Chiefs decided to move on from long time defensive coordinator Bob Sutton. Enter Steve Spagnuolo, who has along with a handful of new players, transformed a historically bad defense into a scary unit in less than a calendar year. This willingness to shake up the team even after a successful season is the exact kind of aggressive approach Kansas City needs in order to stay dominant for years to come.

Apart from the hiring of coach Spagnuolo and the addition of many key contributors, Veach also saw it was time to to let go some aging players on bad contracts. Justin Houston and Eric Berry were both released from the team, mostly in order to start getting rid of the big money attached to their contracts.

Dee Ford was also traded to the San Francisco 49ers, so instead of allocating big money to three often injured and/or aging players, Veach gave himself extra assets and money to be flexible in building a roster that could compete for a Super Bowl.