Chiefs Senior VP of Football Operations on Why Brett Veach is a 'Hall of Fame' GM

The Chiefs' coaches and players get tons of credit, but Chris Shea thinks Brett Veach deserves his flowers as an all-time great GM as well.

Feb 27, 2024; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach speaks during a press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine at Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Throughout the Kansas City Chiefs' current run, head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes have gotten plenty of praise for helping sustain the NFL's current dynasty. The man behind the scenes who constructed it, however, is great in his own right.

In a recent appearance on "NFL Spotlight" with Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team, Chiefs senior vice president of football operations and strategy Chris Shea attempted to expand on why Brett Veach doesn't get more credit as a general manager.

"It's interesting," Shea said. "It makes no sense to me. I don't know if I can give you a reason. I think Brett is very humble and, you know, he doesn't promote himself but he has a lot of success. I think people here would tell you that he's been instrumental in everything we've done to get to the place where we've been in four Super Bowls and won three of them. I think he's a Hall of Fame general manager, and there aren't many of them with the success he's enjoyed. Of course, Coach Reid is a Hall of Fame coach and we've got a great quarterback. We've got an all-time great coach – maybe one of the two or three greatest of all time [and] maybe the greatest of all time. Having that combo, maybe it overshadows the general manager a little bit, and that's not Brett's fault but he's spectacular."

Shea, now in his eighth season with Kansas City, works alongside Veach and his staff to craft savvy personnel and development decisions at the team level. Whether it's dealing with draft preparation, free agent deals, contract extensions or anything in between, Shea has his hand in the fire with Veach and Co. to make the best calls for the present and future of the club.

He believes that the collaborative work environment Veach cultivates plays a massive role in why the Chiefs are so successful. In Shea's two-plus decades in the NFL, he's never seen anything like it.

"Just to give you a little insight into him, he's the best general manager or figurehead of any team I've belonged to or worked for, at the college level or the pro level, at building process and communication that leads to an open and aligned culture," Shea said. "The way we meet, he has our entire front office in our draft meetings and our free agency meetings. That doesn't happen everywhere. There are often lots of silos where people sort of have very narrow job descriptions and don't get exposed to how other people think about players. We're all watching more film and meeting more together as a unified staff than any place I've ever been."

These days, there seem to be multiple versions of the Chiefs' perceived championship core. Reid, Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce oftentimes see their names mentioned first. Extensions include defensive tackle Chris Jones, kicker Harrison Butker and even center Creed Humphrey as vital blue-chip pieces. Veach, though, is one of the top folks who influence the path Kansas City takes.

The results speak for themselves, as the Chiefs are 9-0 this season and are just a couple of months away from embarking on a playoff journey to defend their back-to-back titles. Even if a three-peat of Super Bowls isn't achieved, Shea thinks Veach deserves to be put on a pedestal relative to his modern peers and other Hall of Fame executives like Al Davis, Bill Polian, Bobby Beathard, Ron Wolf, Gil Brandt and others.

It starts with Veach's processes at the top, but how he incorporates communication with coaches and others at a ground level is just another example of what sets him apart.

"He also does a tremendous job of involving the coaching staff and interacting with the coaching staff organically all the time, and the support staff, so that we're really one big football operation here that's all rowing in the same direction," Shea said. "That starts with Clark Hunt and Coach Reid, but Brett's instrumental in it. He should be talked about as one of the great GMs not just of now, but of all time."

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