Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach breaks down decision to draft running back in first round
Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach passed a list of prospects on to Head Coach Andy Reid a few weeks ago.
The docket included LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who the Chiefs took as the No. 32 pick of the 2020 NFL Draft on Thursday. Veach saw a comparison in his eventual inaugural first-round draftee that Reid took up a notch.
“I told Coach, ‘Wait until you finish up your work on Clyde Edwards-Helaire, he’s going to remind you of Brian Westbrook,’” Veach said. “Coach called me back and said ‘He’s better than Brian.’”
Westbrook, who played for Reid in Philadelphia from 2002-09, had back-to-back seasons of over 1,200 rushing yards midway through his career. The two-time Pro Bowler gained 2,104 yards from scrimmage in 2007.
Edwards-Helaire, a 21-year-old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, totaled 1,867 yards in LSU’s 2019 national championship-winning season. He ran for 1,448 of those yards while also finding the endzone 16 times.
The Chiefs selected their pick over Georgia’s D’Andre Swift, Ohio State’s J.K. Dobbins and Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor. Each was ranked higher than Clyde Edwards-Helaire in Kevin Hanson’s 2020 NFL Prospect Rankings.
Arrowhead Report’s Jordan Foote predicted Clyde Edwards-Helaire would be on the board for the Chiefs’ No. 63 pick.
“The kid, his interior running ability, just the vision and the instincts are just rare and unique,” Veach said. “The guy kind of has the ability to play the game in slow motion. Lateral, agility, vision, his ability to start and stop and redirect his hands out of the backfield, some of those guys, one guy may have one trait, the other guy has another trait. We felt like he kind of had all of those traits.”
In the time leading up to the draft, Veach said the Chiefs received calls from teams asking if the Chiefs were interested in trading up. As soon as Green Bay traded up to draft quarterback Jordan Love at No. 26, the phones went silent. The GM was okay with that, keeping the Chiefs tracking with their board.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire is the first running back drafted by the organization since Larry Johnson in 2003. The choice tied back to Veach’s standard of picking the best talent available.
“I mean, this guy can consistently make plays when there really is nothing there to be made, so again, throwing him in now with Tyreek [Hill] and Sammy [Watkins] and Travis [Kelce] and Damien Williams in the backfield and Mecole [Hardman] on the outside, we think it’s going to be really exciting,” Veach said.
