Brett Veach can be hard to read at a point like this.
As the Kansas City Chiefs general manager, he's got plenty on his plate at this point of the regular season. The Chiefs and every other potential contender for this season's Super Bowl are asking themselves honest questions about the state of the roster, trying to discern how much potential help is needed from the outside.
An answer to those questions—right or wrong—is needed fairly quickly because of the NFL's trade deadline that looms in early November.
The Kansas City Chiefs are listed among the teams that are "out" on trading for Davante Adams.
For a GM like Veach, that means looking at potential players returning from injury, young players who will develop, practice squad guys who could step in, and free agents who might have something to add. The next couple of weeks also involve sifting through potential trade partners and analyzing the short- and long-term costs.
Of all of the positional considerations, wide receiver is the one area that's lost the most blood. Hollywood Brown was lost for the season before the preseason even really began. Rashee Rice lasted three-plus games before a fluke situation led to a season-ending knee injury. One year after suffering through a frustrating season at the same position, the Chiefs find themselves down to WR3 atop the depth chart.
Immediately, the Chiefs were linked with every potentially available wide receiver in the NFL. Amari Cooper, Davante Adams, Cooper Kupp, Darius Slayton, DeAndre Hopkins, Diontae Johnson, and more—they were all connected with the Chiefs in one way or another in columns featuring trade ideas or social media posts about likely deals.
So far, however, the Chiefs have kept on rolling with additions at other positions. The Chiefs first added a running back to help replace Isiah Pacheco with the signing of Kareem Hunt. They invited tight end Jody Fortson back to the party as well. Suddenly the Chiefs were running 14 personnel with such a deep roster of talent at tight end, and the backfield looks overly crowded for a long run ahead.
This brought up an important shift for the Chiefs heading into the bye. Were they going to forgo any major acquisition at receiver knowing they could bolster other positions for pennies on the dollar and still move the chains enough to win? After all, they are 5-0 with important head-to-head victories over teams like the Baltimore Ravens and L.A. Chargers.
For fans wondering how Veach is going to approach things, there's at least a bit of clarity emerging piece by piece on the trade market with the news that the Chiefs are "out" on Davante Adams. Per Tashan Reed of The Athletic, only four teams are still in it and K.C. is not in the running.
Of course, being out on Adams doesn't mean that Cooper is also out (or others like him). Adams was always a tougher financial hit than others and a mega-deal between the Raiders and Chiefs was hard to imagine. That said, at least it's some further information or insight into what will happen (or will not happen) at the deadline.
But can Veach really sit still? Think of this: the man signed Hollywood Brown because there was a vision for using him, a perceived need that he filled. And that was the case before the team lost Rashee Rice, too. Leaning on new positions to fill out the offense game after game only makes the Chiefs more one-dimensional too early in the season.
Can the Chiefs afford to lean on Xavier Worthy's learning curve and JuJu Smith-Schuster's resurgence? One is a rookie and the other has a significant injury history. They're valuable, yes, but reliance is a whole other level—at least it feels that way from the outside looking in.
So at this stage, it's hard to tell what Veach will do. He's swung for the fences before on multiple occasions but only when he had a full offseason within which to work. At the trade deadline, the Chiefs are out on Davante Adams, but it's anyone's guess as to how they approach the rest of the WRs on the market.
