June 3, 2025 • 46 mins
Voice of the Chiefs Mitch Holthus and Senior Team Reporter Matt McMullen share their observations from the first week of OTA practices, plus Assistant General Manager Chris Shea stops by to discuss his role in shaping the roster.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
OTA's yep, another acronym in the world of the National
Football League. But for the NFL fans, it's a chance
to get excited. That means the season is that much closer,
and it's also a chance to really take the first
real look at your team in twenty twenty five. And
we're going to do exactly that. And you're also going
to meet someone that you need to know about. But
(00:23):
it's all brought to you on this edition of Defending
the Kingdom by Ticketmaster. Let's keep it on an RPO.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the five, it's a lead plot.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
He goes out of the hands on their side, touchdown
Chanzas City. However, you won. I'm Mitch Holt's voice of
the Chiefs along with senior team reporter Matt McMullan. This
is the time where you get reacquainted with the guys.
You can see him deal with them, talk to the
new guys.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But it's there's some excitement, kind of first day of school,
or at least summer.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
School, some excitement, huh. I think for you and me,
it's like we've been looking forward to this for weeks.
It's so much fun because we can finally turn the
page to next year and with Phase three, which is
what we're in now and OTAs why that's important is
because finally, for the first time since the Super Bowl,
the guys can go out there and do offensive versus
defensive football like eleven on eleven, seven on seven football.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Now no pads, no hitting, there's not like live.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Contact going on, but still again for the first time
during the entire offseason training program here at the facility,
the guys can play offense versus defense football and that's
a lot of fun because finally we can see kind
of what does our team look like at this point,
and they can lay the foundation for what's to come
over the next several weeks and months.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You kind of also see what the coaches are thinking
at least a template to get things revved up. And
we know next as many camp after this and then
training camp. But again, it's one of the reasons the
Chiefs have been able to win consistently now going into
a thirteenth year with Andy Reid in a league which
is set up to do just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
When you're not watching or even thinking about it. With
the offseason training activities and especially when you get to
phase three and can work offense on defense. Now in
this episode two, you and I are especially excited not
only for OTA's phase three, but we're excited because you're
going to meet someone maybe you know about him, but
you probably don't, but you should and you will because
(02:25):
to me, we'll get into criche, but really one of
the more fascinating guys in the National Football League.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And he's hours yeah, and Brett Veach is at the top.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
He's our general manager, and of course Coach Read right
there with him, who's helping guide this whole ship. But
Brett Veach has so many amazing people that work in
this front office that no one really knows about unless
you're super in the Weeds, and they do so much
and have had such an impact on one of the
greatest runs for any professional team and sports history. And
(02:53):
Chrisha gave us about twenty minutes of his time. We'll
get to it here in a little bit. It's just fascinating. Like,
if you're driving around right now and you're a super
football nerd, brace yourself for learning all about how this
guy thinks. Because his brain and the way that he
thinks that kind of leads the way in a lot
of ways for what we're doing in terms of like
contract negotiations, managing the salary cap, like trade compensation, like
(03:16):
all that little stuff. Chris Jay is one of the
guys leading the charge and all of that. So I
find it fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How do you win when you draft last last waiver claim,
hardest schedule and you're going to get a little bit
of that, a lot of that with chrische This is
one of those episodes I think that you'll want to
copy and paste this link. You're going to want to
share this link because sometimes this time of year, some
people will kind of phase out of being Kingdom defenders.
(03:44):
Not many, but some. But this is one you do
not want to miss. But before we get into all
that and reaction of what we've seen early on in
OTA's Phase three, why not go around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I've got six for you today. Nice.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I feel like I've had six every single week and
it's always been for Brian Corey's Brian Cook.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Brian Cook.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Let's all right, So Ellie and I went to dinner
at this place called west Side Local over on the
West Side area.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's north of Southwest Boulevard.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Makes sense. It was local and.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, west Side west Side Local located in the West Side.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Have you ever been over there before?
Speaker 4 (04:20):
It's like it's north of Southwest Boulevard and it's uh,
right under thirty five. Okay, yeah, I had never been
over there before. I had no idea this area existed.
It was super cool.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
What was it called West Side Dinner?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
West Side Local Local?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, west Side Local, not to be confused with north
Side Local or south Side Local. Anyway, I sorta so
it's sort of Crossroady. It's if you go under the highway,
so you know where like the like the roastery is
like over there.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's kind of that general area. Anyway.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I say all this to to bring up Mason because
I met Mason there. We were having dinner and Mason
came over and said hi, and I had never been
there before, so I asked him what to and he
recommended the Brussels sprouts. Now, something about me is I
hate Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I hate them, hate them.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
But he recommended him, and Ellie was like, he recommended it,
we should try it. We tried them there fast.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
He answered, you gotta do it, I.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Gotta do it. And they are fantastic. They're wonderful. So
I tried a new thing for you, Mason, and they
were great Brussels sprouts. They did something to them like
they were like fried. There was like some kind of
like I don't know, thing on them, but they were delicious.
So trying new things. Shout out to you, Mason, thanks
for saying hi. I met Dustin at the Salvation Army
event I worked at last week. I got to host
(05:33):
their civic breakfast here at the stadium. I'm super super cool.
Salvation Army obviously does some incredible things for our community
and for the country as a whole in the world.
Nazzi Johnson was there interviewed Nazzi in front of the
whole group, and Nasey was incredible. I think Nazy's in
store for a big year. He's in the right place mentally.
He was just awesome to talk to, both on stage
(05:55):
and privately. So excited for Nazy, but also said hi
to Dustin. So Dustin, thanks for saying hi. We heard
from p Am. I think that's how you pronounce it.
He just moved to Dubai and will work hard to
establish Chiefs Kingdom in the UAE.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So there's that yep. Shout out to him, Shout out
to chapters. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I'm sure we've heard from someone. We need to have
this score like uniform, like, we need to have an idea.
He did say that he's going to find like barbecue
joints in the UAE, which I don't know if those exists.
Maybe they do, and he's going to insist that they
fly a Chief's Kingdom flag.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So why do I feel like an NFL game will
be in Dubai someday?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Well, it's part of the global marketing program where the
UAE is one of the countries. I forget who has him,
but anyway, it's going to happen eventually. So yeah, do
you ever think that being voice of the Chiefs would
lead you to multiple continents and all that. No, because
we're going to America. Yeah, anyway, maybe one day it'll
(06:52):
be Chiefs and Chargers on Mars, you know. Shout out
to Marcelo. Ironically enough, he's in Brazil and will be
at the game on September. We'll see you then, Marcelo.
We heard from Charles in Oklahoma City, aka Chief's Heartland
as he called it. Big week for Charles in Oklahoma
City with the Thunder going to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So he's annexed and from the Cowboys. If that's the
center of the universe of Chiefs Kingdom, maybe, well, you know,
we've expanded our borders and that's a definitely Cowboy country.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
So do you remember Thomas Chapman. Yes, Thomas used to
work on our PR office. He now works for NFL
Online Media Guide. One of my best friends in the world.
He is incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah. Yeah, Oklahoma State.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
He lives in Oklahoma City now though that's where he's from,
originally nearby to Norman. Actually his wife works for the Singers,
which is a point of contention.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But regardless.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
I asked him, like, is there like Chiefs fandom in
Oklahoma City? And he said absolutely, So there you go.
We are in trying to expand on the Cowboy territory,
which I'm all for.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Can you imagine bedlam every day of your marriage?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
No? I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I can't even no, No, I could not. Lastly, shout
out to Luke. He's an Orange City, Iowa. Yes, do
you know where that is?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yes, it's home of the Northwestern It's it's Northwestern College
of Iowa. But it just goes by Northwestern like Northwestern
University in Evanston, but it's Northwestern Iowaka and up in
that part of the country. Sue Center I think has
Dort College. It's like ten miles away. Gosh, Orange City's had.
(08:20):
I'll just tell you a story. I spoken Sue Center
one day, and I'm like, you know, ioways Chiefs here,
and Vikings here and Packers here, except there's one pin
prick that is the Dolphins.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, you told me about this, vern Den Herder.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Of the undefeated Dolphins. I'm speaking that Dan, and go, hey,
it's you know, you guys like Verndon Hender, And he's
at the back of the room going, I'm vern Hed. Well,
just very close to that is Orange City.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Okay, Yeah, So where does Orange City fall on the
grid of the different fandoms in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Right on the line of red and gold. If you
tip it just five degrees to the left, five degrees
to the right, you're in school country. All right, Well, okay,
right there, right the demarcation line.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So Luke mentioned something to me that might help us
kind of defend that territory where Luke's good friends with
a guy named Brady, and Brady played college football at
the University of South Dakota with Jack Cochran, Jack Cochran
baby representing the Chiefs well in South Dakota well and uh,
I guess Iowa well Orange City, who would have thought
so anyway, it's all I got today, But Jack gotch heritage.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
There are a lot of Dutch herd.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Orange City makes sense.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That makes sense, right, So yeah, up in Northwest Aisle
with great people up there in Lamar's not far. Ice
cream capital of the world. Really, Yeah, Sioux City's not far.
That's home of morning Side College. But uh yeah, Dork
College and they're in Northwestern College is a great athletic
tradition actually in nai.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
In the Sioux City airport is like named after is
like Joe Foss or somebody someone that has something to
do with the AFL. I forget what it is anyway, Yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Right, next week we'll get back on that.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
You folks at Orange City.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, shout out to all of you. It's all I
got today.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Paul was a longtime college basketball official. I'm pretty sure
he's from Warren City and he was a huge Chiefs fan.
Come to camp every year in his River Falls and
he brought his son, his son I think played at Northwestern.
Really yeah, okay, OTAs, we're going to get to Chrische.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You want us to get the criche we're talking about I.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Che and Dork College the OTAs Phase three. First of all,
it's a chance to get back together. And I've had
so many conversations this week, whether it's thirty seconds to
five minutes to ten minutes with guys just getting reacquainted
or meeting the new guys. I had one recently happened
and they're waiting to do their media interview. But it's
(10:39):
George Carlottis, Isaiah Pachecko and Xavier Worthy And it was
great just to chop it up with those guys. But
I said, you three guys because it was big because
Isaiah Pachecko just graduated from Rutgers and it's he is
so proud and it's so cool that he did it.
But he said, you'll own Rutgers. Rutgers will claim you.
But I said, Xavier, you were at Texas three years,
(11:01):
didn't transfer carloft to State at Purdue. These guys are
it's it's it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Really unique doesn't happen anymore. Because and I get it,
it's no fault that the players own when they're in
college because if you have an opportunity to make more money,
I'm not going to fault anyone for that. But how
many times is it now where a guy played at
like three schools in five years and they might say
they're from a certain place because they graduated from there,
but it's like you really from there. Like I think
(11:29):
it's cool with some of our guys like Isaiah who
one could have transferred and gone somewhere else and maybe
made more money or something, but stayed at Rutgers and
Rutgers is his place, and he said something that really
kind of stuck with me, like he wanted to finish
where he started.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That was awesome.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
And Xavier is the same way, staying at Texas as
long as he did, even though there was a lot
of great players there a lot of competition there. Uh.
And yeah with Georgia at Purdue. Like for these guys,
they have the mindset where they want to finish what
they started. And that's a good mindset to have when
you're in the NFL because it's really difficult and there's
a lot of distractions and a lot of attention and
(12:07):
I don't know, just for me on the outside looking in,
for those guys to have that mentality is just one
more thing that helps them be as successful as they are.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
We're going to do a whole episode on the NIL
and how it affects the NFL because it's now real. Yeah,
but to finish what you start. And I heard that too,
and I thought, man, it's gold. And then he said
the block Are. Yeah, he goes the block Are, which
is Rutgers, and I decide, it's so awesome. But when
you get to the National Football League, you're not just
moving around every year. You finish what you start, and
(12:37):
so somewhere there has to be a transition to that feeling.
And most of the guys on our team already have it,
and I think it's one of the reasons we've been
able to win oh nine games when it's one possession
or oh down ten points three times in Super Bowls
and coming back to win. We talk about winning one
hundred different ways. That's another way you finish what you start,
(12:58):
and you create that every day that in the building
or have that kind of feeling. Okay, what were your
thoughts after at least a snippet of OTA's Phase three.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So the Chiefs the way they do it is there's
ten OTA practices, right, and they only open some to
the media, So most of them are closed where no
one's allowed to watch them or report on them. But
today was the very first one that was open to
the media. So we can't get like too deep into it,
Like we are not allowed to talk about position groupings
or who's with the first or second team because the
(13:30):
coaches would say, right now they're rotating everyone. We can't
talk about that stuff. Well, we can't talk about is
individual performances. And there were some things that really stood
out to me today that were impressive. The first being
Patrick Mahomes looked awesome. And here's the thing. You might
be listening to this and say, well, yeah, obviously he's
Patrick Mahomes. I think it's so important not to normalize
what he does in the player that he is and
(13:52):
the fact that he is here in late May treating
it like an end the season practice, Like did you
get that sense when he was out there like he
is treating it like we have a game on Sunday
and that's special.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is the most It is the trait of Patrick
Mahomes that is most taken for granted, not necessarily in
the Chiefs Kingdom, but outside. This is one of the
best athletes to ever play in any professional sport in
the history of our nation, history of the world. And
yet on a overcast Ota Phase three he was doing
(14:27):
exactly that. But I love what he said in his
media session today too. He said, when you have guys
that are already getting fitted for the gold jacket, and
he meant Travis Kelcey or Chris Jones, and they work
the way they do. When I try to impress upon
the players, veterans coming in from other teams, young players, rookies,
(14:49):
he goes, they'll pay attention. Yeah, but it's the way
Pat does, who's already going to be in a gold jacket,
that approaches it like it's his first day of junior
high all practice. I love him for it, Yeah, and
I just think it's it's way underrated. So I'm with you.
It's exciting to watch him and what he does and
how he galvanizes galvanizes everybody on this team to get
(15:12):
him to where he wants them to go.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
These practices are voluntary.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Nobody has to be here and if you look around
the league, there's a lot of teams and a lot
of players that just don't show up to these or
they don't take them seriously. Patrick Mahomes takes it seriously.
And like you said, if you're any other player on
this roster and you see Patrick Mahomes taking it as
seriously as he does, you better take it seriously too.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So anyway, all forty three of the defensive players were
here to do. How cool is that all forty.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Three defensive players on this roster we're here at OTA
Phase three. I'm not exactly sure I've ever seen that.
There's always somebody that's got some conflict or injury rehab.
All forty three defensive players are on the field.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I mean, if that doesn't fire you up, I don't
know what will. So anyway, a few other observations that
stuck out to me. I thought, Jalen Royal's had a
great day, and listen, he's a rookie. I'm not trying
to start a hype train. I'm just reporting on what
I saw here today when the guys were out there
in shorts and no pads and Jalen Royals looked the part.
He had a bunch of strong catches. He's really strong
(16:13):
through his upper body, like he just goes up there
and gets the football. And in my opinion, the play
of the day took place during I think it was
a seven on seven period during red zone where Mahomes
just kind of lifted it up and gave his guy
an opportunity to make a play in the back of
the end zone and Royals in traffic went up there
and got it and got both feet and bounds. Like
that's an awesome play by our rookie. And there's a
(16:34):
lot going on for receivers in this offense at this point,
like they're trying to keep their head above water. But
Royles just consistently was popping today. So he's a guy
that stock out. That stood out. Nico Romihio stood out
to me. We know a lot about Nico. Nico just
caught a bunch of passes and looked good out there
on the practice field. Let's see who else. Taekwon Thornton
(16:56):
was interesting. So Thornton signed with the practice squad last year.
You might remember he was kind of a high draft
pick of the Patriots a couple of years ago. Had
a blazing forty yard dash at the combine, so great speed.
He has a long, slender build, so you can go
up and get the football too. And this is his
opportunity now with the Chiefs, with the full offseason training program,
to try to make this team.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And he looked good to me.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
He made a couple of great catches deep down the
sideline during seven on seven that was impressive. And then defensively,
Omar Norman Lot, I think really looks the part. I'll
caveat it with this is not a camp where you
can really hit each other, as I keep saying, so
it's important to realize that the offensive and defensive lines,
it's like limited what you can do because there's no
live contact. You're in shorts and shells. So take it
(17:39):
with a grain of salt. But at least so far
here in early May, Omar Norman Lot was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I thought, what you can see even though you're not
in full pads, you can see first step quickness. Oh yeah,
and you can see that in Norman Lot. Again, we
don't want to oversew it. Excited about its hard ninth
and I'll just tag my thing this way. One we
talked about how the way pat works. I think two
(18:04):
things here. One is the quick integration of the rookie class.
Josh Simmons is clearly way ahead of where I thought
he would be, and Coach even mentioned the same thing
I just didn't think he would be that. Don't again,
don't overreact. We're trying not to overreact.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Coach that he'd be ready for camp for sure, which
is crazy. We didn't think that.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
End and injury, Yeah, Brashad Smith and seeing what he
can do in his electric speed. But it seems like
he's integrating quickly Jelotti. When you look at Ashton Jelotti
integrating quickly, mentioned Norman Lott, Jalen Royals. We talk about
hand size. We do these things metric wise, we want
to measure, but we don't measure is hand strength. And
(18:47):
you mentioned his upper body strength. You can see it,
but it goes back to he was a basketball point guard,
so he was underrecruited. You see his hands and his
upper body strength, but his ability to snatch footballs and
have strength and contested catches is something that we want
to see as we move along. So and the other
thing I'll say before we get into Chris is that
(19:09):
Spags has the potential to be even more creative. There
is more mix and match opportunities. It's just like a
chef and you're giving him like ten more spices because
you and I have both seen it that Spags can
he can do some damage with this defense.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And this was the number two scoring defense in the
NFL last year. I don't it's difficult because I'm not
taking into account the last game of the season against
the Broncos, which actually knocked us down to the number
four scoring defense in the league. I do not recognize
that because that was not real. It was like a
pre season game. So this was the number two scoring
defense in the NFL last year, and I think it's
way deeper than it was last season, just based on
(19:49):
our initial impressions of watching the guys, watching Noel Williams
at corner, watching Omar Norman Lott at defensive tackle, watching
Ashton Galotti at edge rusher, watching Jeffrey Bass and linebacker,
like we are way deeper in my opinion, and just
the ability to bring some guys back like Charles Minniho
being back on this team, Like what a luxury that.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Is to have a pass rusher like that. Part of
this defensive line rotation.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
So yeah, I just think this defense is still on
the up and up, and I think it's deeper than
it was last year. And I think that might be
my number one takeaway here from the first week of
OTAs is just that our depth is very impressive and
it's a matter of going out there and continuing to
improve and get better and grow as a team. But
that's my initial takeaway, and I think that should be
(20:32):
something that gets people very excited that the depth of
this team, I think is better than a team last
year which won fifteen games in the regular season and
went to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I'm glad you mentioned Williams and Bass. Every one of
these rookies is ahead of where I thought they would be.
And again, it reminds me of twenty twenty two. Don't
want to get ahead of ourselves, but these guys are
on the move in this rookie class. All right, let's
get to the matter at hand, and that is a
remarkable human being. Really in the interview, you're going to
(21:02):
hear this when you study what Christie has done in
his life to this point. There are very few humans
in our country that can have his LinkedIn page or
his resume and a very few in the National Football League.
I say it all the time publicly and privately. The
Chiefs have been able to consistently win seventy five percent
(21:22):
win percentage. I show this bar graph when I speak publicly. Now,
the winningest percentage of any team in professional sports, at
least MLB and the ANBA.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's crazy. It is crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But one of the reasons is the guy we're going
to talk about, and he's just fascinating to me. This
is one of those again, send it, Send the link
to your friend because they're going to want to listen
to this. You don't have to be a super nerd,
but this is a giant reason of why the Kansas
City Chiefs win consistently. Matt, I'm so excited about this
(21:57):
first time on defending the Kingdom, to get this extraordinary
human being with us. And it's Chris shay Our, Senior
vice president for football Operations and Strategy. Now, Chris, I'm
going to intro like this. If people want to look
up your LinkedIn page, it will crash their server. This
is only my thirty second year in the NFL. There's
no one like you. You've coached, you were a team manager.
(22:20):
You were an equipment manager on the original nineteen ninety
five Carolina Panthers, or assistant manager you've been, You're an attorney,
you were a corrections officer. Let's see what else. You've
worked with six five other teams other than the Panthers.
Now with us, you've been with the NFL Management Council
dealing with overtime, looking at reviews, and a salary cap
(22:42):
and now you do everything for us, including negotiation and
salary cap all of those amazing things. How much of
that leads to your success in what you're doing now
because it will blow the normal human away.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, thanks for that very flattering introduction. It's awesome to
be on with you guys. I'm glad we can we
can do this today. Yeah. I've been very fortunate to
build what has turned out to be from the ground
up well rounded perspective on what goes on in a
football organization. And you know, some of it wasn't necessarily
(23:18):
planned out from the beginning to to be the path
that I took. But now that I'm here, I've been
very fortunate to be able to, uh, you know, have
all those experiences with some really incredible people and really
great places. Uh, like you said, UH started off you know, well,
first of all, I started off as a really unathletic
(23:39):
high school football player in Massachusetts. Then became a student
manager at Boston College. Thought I wanted to pursue a
career in coaching. I coached high school ball. I coached
at Harvard, worked with great people there, some of whom
are in the NFL, or really many of whom are
in the NFL now or have been and had an
opportunity to get into NFELL scouting from you know, college
(24:03):
coaching and recruiting background, and I've weaved you know, for
the last twenties, geez, twenty five plus, I guess, twenty
seven years in and out of scouting, picking up a
lot of degree, learning about the salary cap, you know.
The whole time I've been in the NFL. The most
important thing that I've or the most fortunate thing that
(24:26):
has happened to me, is I've had great mentors, Hall
of Fame, super Bowl winning coaches. In college. I worked
for Tom Coughlin, you know. In the NFL, I've of
course coach Read, one of the greatest coaches of all time.
I've also worked for coach Parcels. So those are three
super Bowl winning coaches there, Coach Peterson in Philadelphia when
(24:48):
I was with the Eagles, but also Super Bowl winning
executives like Brett and Howie Roseman and Bill Pollian when
I was with the Panthers years and years ago. So
I've had excellent role models and great people to learn
from and being able to have spent time and everything
from equipment to coaching, to recruiting in college, to pro
(25:09):
scout in college, scouting, cap league teams, all these different things.
It allows me to have a really broad perspective. But
you know, I feel really blessed that I'm here and
I work for someone like Brett who allows me to
bring my opinions on a variety of fronts to bear
in helping provide him with information as he makes his decisions.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
How to go as a corrections officer. I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
That was incredible. So my freshman and sophomore years in
high school, I worked My summer job was I worked
as a corrections officer. So the full time folks were
taking vacation and they needed help in the summer, and
the pay was great. It was a little it was
a little riskier than normal summer jobs, but it was
a I'll put it this way, Nothing we do in
(25:56):
football is as stressful as that.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Well, I want to get back to football. You mentioned
Brett Beach. How'd you first meet Brett? Because I think
you knew Brett before your time with the Chiefs. And
also tell me about your working relationship today because you
guys worked together every single day.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Sure, sure, so you know Brett and I didn't overlap
at the Eagles before I joined the Chiefs. I was
at the Eagles for two seasons and Brett and Coach
Reid and the whole crew that had come over with
Coach Reid were already here. But we had a lot
of mutual friends who had connected us, and I hadn't
(26:30):
worked with him, but I had gotten to know him
immediately prior to coming here and had a lot of
respect for what our mutual friends thought of him. And
then I arrived in twenty seventeen and it just took
off from there. We've had a seamless working relationship since.
It's fortunately he's allowed me as I as I mentioned earlier,
(26:56):
to have an opinion across a broad array of top
but really it's about he as a general manager, knocks
down silos and lets all of his staff participate in
uh you know, the team building process, the meetings that
we have, uh and create open dialogue. Worked with uh,
(27:17):
you know, Brett and Brent Tillis for a long time.
The three of us were uh you know, uh obviously
negotiating and designing every contract that we've done here since
Brett has been the general manager. UH. And that continues
now that Brent has moved on, and we continue to
work with with other great people in the salary cap
side of things. Uh, Jack Walloff and Ryan Herman UH
(27:40):
work closely with Brett and I on all matters and
football administration. But really it comes down to Brett creates
a seamless relationship with all of his employees. I'm included
in that, and we have just ongoing dialogue on a
constant basis about you know, the day's immediate business, but
also long term planning and strategy.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
One thing Mitch and I joke around about is we
imagine your relationship as if Brett just wants to do
stuff and he's like, Chris, find a way to make
this work. Like I think about like the Tyrone Matthew
contract years ago, and like the Jujus Schuster contract, Like, Hey, Chris,
I want to sign this guy.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Can we make this work? Does that kind of thing
happen often?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yes? Really, what we do? You know we have Brett
has great instincts as a team builder and general manager,
and you know the strategy and philosophy of team building
that he and Andy have coach read. You know, it's
been proven to win in the league for decades. And
(28:39):
Brett's eye for talent is outstanding. So when he has
somebody that he wants to add, obviously that's that's something
that I have faith in working out. But bigger picture,
Brett as a general manager, he may have players he
wants to add, but he's always looking at trying to
figure out how it fits into the bigger picture of
(29:00):
the larger puzzle of how to build a sustainably competitive
Super Bowl organization. So while he may be very excited
about signing a particular player, he does a good job
of taking a step back and seeing the big picture. So,
you know, we have dialogue about those type of signings
all the time. But it's in no way is it
(29:23):
isn't me holding him back from doing things. It's just
we always talk about the the ramifications of decisions we
make and how it affects the planet.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Sure we blurred your background just because it's like a
beautiful mind the movie. There's all these algorithms behind you
that are your law review articles. But it's so exciting
for Matt and me to put you in front of
the Chiefs Kingdom because you're such a vital part of
our winning and winning consistently. But I want to ask
(29:51):
you just about trades and put off trades, whether it's draft.
We've seen Brett be very aggressive on draft week throughout
the draft weekend, but then other trades and how those
work and how you can even pull them off.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Sure well, so, of course Brett has the ultimate authority
to decide whether or not we're trading a player or
a pick, but one of the key duties that he's
delegated to me is to analyze trades, the market for trades.
I work closely with Mark Richards, who oversees our player
(30:28):
personnel analytics, on analyzing historical trades for either players or
draft picks. We prepare that research to put Brett in
a position where when we're making decisions in a pressurized
(30:50):
environment like the draft we have an idea of wherever
we move in the draft before we get there. Wherever
we move, what it should take. Of course, it's fluid,
and we build, you know, various things like with computer
interfaces with our information technology department to allow us to
(31:11):
fluidly analyze trades as they happen, to update the history
of trades as they occur. But ultimately my role in
all trades is to tell Brett whether I think it's
fair for what we're trying to accomplish. Many trades, I'm
actually negotiating them with the other team, particularly in the draft,
(31:31):
but we have a great to get into draft day.
We have a great group of executives here at the
Chiefs that we're all working on trades together, and ultimately
I may be on the phone with a team, Brett
may be on the phone with a team. Also, Mike Bradway,
Tim Terry, Ryan Nutt from our front office, all of
(31:52):
us may be talking to teams. I have Mark Richards
and Ryan Herman with me during the draft to analyze
trades with me. All those all that information comes to
Brett through me, and ultimately I give him a thumbs
up thumbs down on what I think of the trade
and he has to make a decision. And sometimes he'll
(32:13):
make a decision that maybe makes sense based on what
the draft board looks like, but you know, historically we're
taking a little less value, or we're we're you know,
maybe moving around in a way that if your nitpicky
about draft points on some arbitrary chart, might not make sense.
(32:35):
But he has a great feel for merging the draft
board together with what the history of trades are and
we combine all that information really, really well, and it's
a testament to the whole group, not just me. And then,
of course we also have another key part of our
football administration group, Jack Walloff, in the draft room, who
executes the paperwork of the trades. So when Brett decides
(32:57):
he wants, you know, we'll be fielding calls for potentially,
you know, an hour before we pick. We're always on
the phone about exploring what would cost to go up
or go back in all directions with almost every pick
that we have, And when we finally pull the trigger,
Brett will give the thumbs up and we'll phone it
into the league. Usually I'm the one calling it into
(33:18):
the NFL, and the other team does it too, and
then boom, we picked the player and go from there.
With player trades, it's a little slower moving, but the
same process is basically in place where we haven't an
If we are ever involved in another player wanting to
acquire one of our players or vice versa, we inform
ourselves about what the history of trades looks like at
(33:39):
that position, that time of year, the type of and
also involving what type of contract that player has will
inform Brett. And sometimes Brett's talking to another general manager.
Sometimes I'm talking to my counterparts, you know. Sometimes when
Mike Borganzi was here, he'd be talking to a person
at a team. But we all come together and we
(34:01):
function as one unit, and it's ultimately uh breat you know,
driving the train, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
It's beyond fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's awesome, that really is.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And including uh in your job description is the salary
cap obviously also very fascinating. I do this for a living.
I try to understand it. The salary cap is so confusing, though,
Can you explain how you begin to interpret the cap
and to manage it for our team?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Sure? Well, uh one, So you know, in really broad strokes,
the salary cap of course, is you know, a collectively
bargained restraint on what we can spend on players. But
really it's a revenue share too. It's the players get
a certain percentage of the pie and the owners retain
a certain percentage of the pie to spend on everything else.
(34:49):
But within the rules of how you can spend money. Uh,
it's it takes a lot of planning and having multiple
people like redundancy and just making sure that you're accounting
for every contract the right way. I don't mean to
suggest that, uh it isn't complicated, but it's not that
(35:11):
complicated if I can do so. So what basically what
we do is we have you know, we're always looking
at how contracts count against our uh cap uh and
also our cash budgets, you know, because we only have
a certain amount of cash that we can spend that
Clark provides us every year, and myself and the group
(35:34):
that works on football administration here uh led by Jack
Walloff who's a mastermind on understanding player markets, and you know,
keeping track of how everything counts against our cap. We
we make sure that we are maintaining for Brett and Clark, UH,
you know, a three year plan all the time on
how our cap looks this year in the following two,
(35:58):
so that we understand the ramifications of any contract that
we sign or any transaction that we enter into. Having
said that, though it once you've worked with it for
a while, understanding just how the rules work within the
spreadsheet becomes a little bit second nature. But there are
(36:19):
a lot of moving parts. It's really just a set
of accounting rules. And however, the big overarching theme that
we have here is that decisions about the roster should
be driven by football. Yeah, we have a limitation on
what we can spend on players and how we spend it,
(36:40):
but we try to make sure that the salary cap
isn't driving decisions so much as which players we like
to keep drive decisions.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
It's been apparent now for thirteen years, how you guys
have been proactive with the cap instead of being reactive,
and we've seen teams go right down the tubes because
of it. My next question, Chris, deals with the third
part of a triangle that fans don't think about, and
that's dealing with agents. We know there's the league, we
know there's the teams, but then there's the agents. What
about the intricacies and the dynamics of that.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Well, you know, so, so I'm the principal contract negotiator here,
but Brett could be involved in talking to agents during
a negotiation. Jack Walloff, who I work with, maybe involved
in talking agents occasionally. Ryan Herman, who I work with,
is part of that group too. And you know, really
(37:36):
what it comes down to is this is a people
business and we're all going to do business over a
long period of time and have relationships that extend beyond
any one transaction or negotiation. So dealing with agents is
like in any other line of work, dealing with people
that you're going to have business dealings with on an
ongoing basis, building mutual respect and treating people the way
(38:01):
you'd want to be treated as a core aspect of
how Brett and I go about the business here of
negotiating our contracts. We're not always going to agree with
the other party in a negotiation, but we try not
to be disagreeable or disrespectful. But you know, there can
be tough, stressful moments as we try to work out,
you know, keeping our players here or signing outsiders who
(38:24):
haven't been here previously. But it all comes down to
people skills and trying to develop good relationships and develop
trust with the other party so that you can reach
win win agreements for everybody.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Do you ever get a break, Chris, Because when you're
a team like us that goes to the Super Bowl
hopefully every year, it's free agency in the draft right
after that, then we jump into camp and OTAs and
training camp and it all starts over again.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Do you ever get a break?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well, there's not a lot of work life balance in
this business, but that's what we've chosen, you know, God
bless all of our wives and family. But yeah, I
mean we do have some downtime, particularly between Mini camp
and the start of training camp. You know, we tend
(39:12):
to have time out of the office. Now that doesn't
mean necessarily that we have all of our business taken
care of, and we may have a contract negotiation that
pops up in that period. So we take the downtime
where we can get it. But I'd much rather have
the problem with us running deep into February each year
in the season, in the postseason and having to deal
(39:33):
with that problem of you know, having to quickly turn
the table into the off season, then having a lot
of free time in January and February, for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, definitely a first world problem. Yeah, question, Chris, And
you've been so kind with your time. I think you're
like Brett and coach and the you sleep half brain
at a time like a dolphin. And I think you
still coach your daughter's basketball team, or at least, But
I want to ask you, we're setting here now, when
we post this, we'll be on the cusp of going
(40:03):
to Phase three of O. T A's and we're going
to morph into the mandatory mini camp and then into
that plant shutdown and the closest thing the NFL has
right now, what has to happen, in your opinion, with
you and your cohorts from now until the start of
training camp. That is top, top of mind, top priority.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Sure, well, so Brett, myself, all the front office. We're
evaluating the team on the field during these during the
voluntary off season program, so that that's a piece of
data that we're taking in just as we think about
the future. That's immediate. That's every day the players are
out here, you know, working out even now in as
(40:44):
we speak today. You know, we've been through Phase one.
Now we're finishing phase two and getting into phase three.
The from the football administration salary cap side of things,
you know, we have some ongoing contract and go with
players without getting into specifics, those include folks like the
(41:04):
unsigned rookie draft picks. We have a few of them signed,
we don't have all of them signed. So those negotiations,
you know, all have different cadences and timetables, and there
are different things that are getting negotiated, different maybe hold
ups and timing with all those things. But from here
through training camp, getting those negotiations resolved, whether that's in
(41:26):
a new contract or or or not remains to be seen.
But all that business needs to be taken care of
before we get to Saint Joe or before certainly in
some instances even potentially we may be getting some of
the say, undrafted rookie content or I'm sorry, the drafted
(41:46):
rookie contracts done even sooner than that. From a from
a more of an operational perspective, getting past just evaluating
the team and contracts, this is a good time for
an after action analysis of free agency, the draft, the season.
What can we do better? Brett and the player personnel staff,
(42:09):
all of us are working on. How did we go
about doing our business last year, where can we improve
That applies not just to how we scout, but how
we take in and ingest the scouting information, information from analytics,
the cap to present to Brett so that we have
the best possible plan for free agency and the draft
(42:29):
in twenty twenty six. So there'll be some of that,
but yeah, it's top of mind just getting what contract
business we have done while also planning for the future.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
You have been so gracious with your time, and Matt
and I are so excited to present you to the Kingdom.
I always say publicly, we win for a hundred reasons
and you're a big part of that. So thanks for
coming here and having such an impact on a footprint
on the Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Well, thank you very much for having me. You know,
I'm just one of the several good guys that and
end gals that Brett has working for him, and I'm
also lucky enough to work with Coach Reid. So I
feel really blessed and fortunate to be a part of
the Kingdom and I'm glad to be on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We're still going through your resume, but we're on page seven.
Just give us some time, so Thanks my friend, stay
on on it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Thanks Chris, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Thanks Chris. Everybody I think now has an idea at
least a better idea of who Chris che is, what
he does, and why he helps us win. I think
he's fascinating. I think he's remarkable. I love it that
he's ours.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I think it's super cool.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
I think it's so funny that he was talking about
the cap and he's like, well, once you get a
hang of it, it's not that complex. I'm like, Chris,
it's pretty complex, and it's a testament to your intelligence
and how incredible you are at your job that you
can navigate this, just like at second nature. He's amazing,
and you know they're like you always say, there are
so many reasons behind the Chiefs winning over the last
(44:00):
several years, and Brett Veach is one of the primary reasons.
But I think he would be the first to say
that he has amazing people around him that can help
him achieve what he wants to do. And Chris is
so good at keeping the long term vision in mind
but saying, hey, we want to add this player or
we want to go get this draft pick. Or make
this trade. How does it fit into what we do?
(44:22):
How does it fit into what we want to be
doing three years from now. And the reason the Chiefs
have been able to sustain success for so long, which
is the hardest thing to do in the NFL, is
because we are never saying it's all about twenty twenty five.
We're never saying that twenty twenty five we have a
chance to win a super Bowl, and we also have
a chance to win a super Bowl in twenty twenty six,
(44:42):
in twenty twenty seven, in twenty twenty eight because of
this crew and what they're doing and how they're always
thinking ahead.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, he's remarkable, he's outstanding. And again send it down
the line because people need to know the assistant general
manager now has he've got a promotion of the case,
how many people do you I know in any endeavor was? Oh,
I don't know. Equipment manager, equipment helper. He played, he coached,
he's a lawyer. He worked for the NFL in salary
(45:12):
cap compliance basically, and he's been in personnel, he's coached,
and now he's an assistant general manager role and I'm leaving,
like ten thoods.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Did you mention the corrections officer.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
No, he's a corrections officer. Okay, just throw that one
in there if anybody in the league goes, oh, we
got that guy too, Hey, was he a corrections officer? Okay,
stand down, we have Chris Shay, he's ours. You can't
have it.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Well.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
I think what's so impressive too is Coach Reid has
the same demeanor where they are so friendly and approachable,
but you respect them, you know. And I think his
background has lent itself to that kind of vibe around him,
where you know, this guy is brilliant and you want
to make sure you do right by him and don't
(45:57):
let him down. But at the same time, he is
a pro. He is friendly. He asked you how your
day is going. Very rarely do you find people like that,
And we have multiple people like that with that demeanor
in positions of power in this building. And I just
think it goes a long way in any field, but
especially here in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Why do we win consistently? Two of the one hundred
reasons OTAs and Chris Chey
OTA's yep, another acronym in the world of the National
Football League. But for the NFL fans, it's a chance
to get excited. That means the season is that much closer,
and it's also a chance to really take the first
real look at your team in twenty twenty five. And
we're going to do exactly that. And you're also going
to meet someone that you need to know about. But
(00:23):
it's all brought to you on this edition of Defending
the Kingdom by Ticketmaster. Let's keep it on an RPO.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the five, it's a lead plot.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
He goes out of the hands on their side, touchdown
Chanzas City. However, you won. I'm Mitch Holt's voice of
the Chiefs along with senior team reporter Matt McMullan. This
is the time where you get reacquainted with the guys.
You can see him deal with them, talk to the
new guys.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But it's there's some excitement, kind of first day of school,
or at least summer.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
School, some excitement, huh. I think for you and me,
it's like we've been looking forward to this for weeks.
It's so much fun because we can finally turn the
page to next year and with Phase three, which is
what we're in now and OTAs why that's important is
because finally, for the first time since the Super Bowl,
the guys can go out there and do offensive versus
defensive football like eleven on eleven, seven on seven football.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Now no pads, no hitting, there's not like live.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Contact going on, but still again for the first time
during the entire offseason training program here at the facility,
the guys can play offense versus defense football and that's
a lot of fun because finally we can see kind
of what does our team look like at this point,
and they can lay the foundation for what's to come
over the next several weeks and months.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You kind of also see what the coaches are thinking
at least a template to get things revved up. And
we know next as many camp after this and then
training camp. But again, it's one of the reasons the
Chiefs have been able to win consistently now going into
a thirteenth year with Andy Reid in a league which
is set up to do just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
When you're not watching or even thinking about it. With
the offseason training activities and especially when you get to
phase three and can work offense on defense. Now in
this episode two, you and I are especially excited not
only for OTA's phase three, but we're excited because you're
going to meet someone maybe you know about him, but
you probably don't, but you should and you will because
(02:25):
to me, we'll get into criche, but really one of
the more fascinating guys in the National Football League.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
And he's hours yeah, and Brett Veach is at the top.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
He's our general manager, and of course Coach Read right
there with him, who's helping guide this whole ship. But
Brett Veach has so many amazing people that work in
this front office that no one really knows about unless
you're super in the Weeds, and they do so much
and have had such an impact on one of the
greatest runs for any professional team and sports history. And
(02:53):
Chrisha gave us about twenty minutes of his time. We'll
get to it here in a little bit. It's just fascinating. Like,
if you're driving around right now and you're a super
football nerd, brace yourself for learning all about how this
guy thinks. Because his brain and the way that he
thinks that kind of leads the way in a lot
of ways for what we're doing in terms of like
contract negotiations, managing the salary cap, like trade compensation, like
(03:16):
all that little stuff. Chris Jay is one of the
guys leading the charge and all of that. So I
find it fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How do you win when you draft last last waiver claim,
hardest schedule and you're going to get a little bit
of that, a lot of that with chrische This is
one of those episodes I think that you'll want to
copy and paste this link. You're going to want to
share this link because sometimes this time of year, some
people will kind of phase out of being Kingdom defenders.
(03:44):
Not many, but some. But this is one you do
not want to miss. But before we get into all
that and reaction of what we've seen early on in
OTA's Phase three, why not go around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I've got six for you today. Nice.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I feel like I've had six every single week and
it's always been for Brian Corey's Brian Cook.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Brian Cook.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Let's all right, So Ellie and I went to dinner
at this place called west Side Local over on the
West Side area.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's north of Southwest Boulevard.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Makes sense. It was local and.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, west Side west Side Local located in the West Side.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Have you ever been over there before?
Speaker 4 (04:20):
It's like it's north of Southwest Boulevard and it's uh,
right under thirty five. Okay, yeah, I had never been
over there before. I had no idea this area existed.
It was super cool.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
What was it called West Side Dinner?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
West Side Local Local?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, west Side Local, not to be confused with north
Side Local or south Side Local. Anyway, I sorta so
it's sort of Crossroady. It's if you go under the highway,
so you know where like the like the roastery is
like over there.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's kind of that general area. Anyway.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I say all this to to bring up Mason because
I met Mason there. We were having dinner and Mason
came over and said hi, and I had never been
there before, so I asked him what to and he
recommended the Brussels sprouts. Now, something about me is I
hate Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I hate them, hate them.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
But he recommended him, and Ellie was like, he recommended it,
we should try it. We tried them there fast.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
He answered, you gotta do it, I.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Gotta do it. And they are fantastic. They're wonderful. So
I tried a new thing for you, Mason, and they
were great Brussels sprouts. They did something to them like
they were like fried. There was like some kind of
like I don't know, thing on them, but they were delicious.
So trying new things. Shout out to you, Mason, thanks
for saying hi. I met Dustin at the Salvation Army
event I worked at last week. I got to host
(05:33):
their civic breakfast here at the stadium. I'm super super cool.
Salvation Army obviously does some incredible things for our community
and for the country as a whole in the world.
Nazzi Johnson was there interviewed Nazzi in front of the
whole group, and Nasey was incredible. I think Nazy's in
store for a big year. He's in the right place mentally.
He was just awesome to talk to, both on stage
(05:55):
and privately. So excited for Nazy, but also said hi
to Dustin. So Dustin, thanks for saying hi. We heard
from p Am. I think that's how you pronounce it.
He just moved to Dubai and will work hard to
establish Chiefs Kingdom in the UAE.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So there's that yep. Shout out to him, Shout out
to chapters. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I'm sure we've heard from someone. We need to have
this score like uniform, like, we need to have an idea.
He did say that he's going to find like barbecue
joints in the UAE, which I don't know if those exists.
Maybe they do, and he's going to insist that they
fly a Chief's Kingdom flag.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So why do I feel like an NFL game will
be in Dubai someday?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Well, it's part of the global marketing program where the
UAE is one of the countries. I forget who has him,
but anyway, it's going to happen eventually. So yeah, do
you ever think that being voice of the Chiefs would
lead you to multiple continents and all that. No, because
we're going to America. Yeah, anyway, maybe one day it'll
(06:52):
be Chiefs and Chargers on Mars, you know. Shout out
to Marcelo. Ironically enough, he's in Brazil and will be
at the game on September. We'll see you then, Marcelo.
We heard from Charles in Oklahoma City, aka Chief's Heartland
as he called it. Big week for Charles in Oklahoma
City with the Thunder going to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So he's annexed and from the Cowboys. If that's the
center of the universe of Chiefs Kingdom, maybe, well, you know,
we've expanded our borders and that's a definitely Cowboy country.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
So do you remember Thomas Chapman. Yes, Thomas used to
work on our PR office. He now works for NFL
Online Media Guide. One of my best friends in the world.
He is incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah. Yeah, Oklahoma State.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
He lives in Oklahoma City now though that's where he's from,
originally nearby to Norman. Actually his wife works for the Singers,
which is a point of contention.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But regardless.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
I asked him, like, is there like Chiefs fandom in
Oklahoma City? And he said absolutely, So there you go.
We are in trying to expand on the Cowboy territory,
which I'm all for.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Can you imagine bedlam every day of your marriage?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
No? I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I can't even no, No, I could not. Lastly, shout
out to Luke. He's an Orange City, Iowa. Yes, do
you know where that is?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yes, it's home of the Northwestern It's it's Northwestern College
of Iowa. But it just goes by Northwestern like Northwestern
University in Evanston, but it's Northwestern Iowaka and up in
that part of the country. Sue Center I think has
Dort College. It's like ten miles away. Gosh, Orange City's had.
(08:20):
I'll just tell you a story. I spoken Sue Center
one day, and I'm like, you know, ioways Chiefs here,
and Vikings here and Packers here, except there's one pin
prick that is the Dolphins.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, you told me about this, vern Den Herder.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Of the undefeated Dolphins. I'm speaking that Dan, and go, hey,
it's you know, you guys like Verndon Hender, And he's
at the back of the room going, I'm vern Hed. Well,
just very close to that is Orange City.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Okay, Yeah, So where does Orange City fall on the
grid of the different fandoms in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Right on the line of red and gold. If you
tip it just five degrees to the left, five degrees
to the right, you're in school country. All right, Well, okay,
right there, right the demarcation line.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So Luke mentioned something to me that might help us
kind of defend that territory where Luke's good friends with
a guy named Brady, and Brady played college football at
the University of South Dakota with Jack Cochran, Jack Cochran
baby representing the Chiefs well in South Dakota well and uh,
I guess Iowa well Orange City, who would have thought
so anyway, it's all I got today, But Jack gotch heritage.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
There are a lot of Dutch herd.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Orange City makes sense.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That makes sense, right, So yeah, up in Northwest Aisle
with great people up there in Lamar's not far. Ice
cream capital of the world. Really, Yeah, Sioux City's not far.
That's home of morning Side College. But uh yeah, Dork
College and they're in Northwestern College is a great athletic
tradition actually in nai.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
In the Sioux City airport is like named after is
like Joe Foss or somebody someone that has something to
do with the AFL. I forget what it is anyway, Yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Right, next week we'll get back on that.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
You folks at Orange City.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, shout out to all of you. It's all I
got today.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Paul was a longtime college basketball official. I'm pretty sure
he's from Warren City and he was a huge Chiefs fan.
Come to camp every year in his River Falls and
he brought his son, his son I think played at Northwestern.
Really yeah, okay, OTAs, we're going to get to Chrische.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You want us to get the criche we're talking about I.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Che and Dork College the OTAs Phase three. First of all,
it's a chance to get back together. And I've had
so many conversations this week, whether it's thirty seconds to
five minutes to ten minutes with guys just getting reacquainted
or meeting the new guys. I had one recently happened
and they're waiting to do their media interview. But it's
(10:39):
George Carlottis, Isaiah Pachecko and Xavier Worthy And it was
great just to chop it up with those guys. But
I said, you three guys because it was big because
Isaiah Pachecko just graduated from Rutgers and it's he is
so proud and it's so cool that he did it.
But he said, you'll own Rutgers. Rutgers will claim you.
But I said, Xavier, you were at Texas three years,
(11:01):
didn't transfer carloft to State at Purdue. These guys are
it's it's it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Really unique doesn't happen anymore. Because and I get it,
it's no fault that the players own when they're in
college because if you have an opportunity to make more money,
I'm not going to fault anyone for that. But how
many times is it now where a guy played at
like three schools in five years and they might say
they're from a certain place because they graduated from there,
but it's like you really from there. Like I think
(11:29):
it's cool with some of our guys like Isaiah who
one could have transferred and gone somewhere else and maybe
made more money or something, but stayed at Rutgers and
Rutgers is his place, and he said something that really
kind of stuck with me, like he wanted to finish
where he started.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That was awesome.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
And Xavier is the same way, staying at Texas as
long as he did, even though there was a lot
of great players there a lot of competition there. Uh.
And yeah with Georgia at Purdue. Like for these guys,
they have the mindset where they want to finish what
they started. And that's a good mindset to have when
you're in the NFL because it's really difficult and there's
a lot of distractions and a lot of attention and
(12:07):
I don't know, just for me on the outside looking in,
for those guys to have that mentality is just one
more thing that helps them be as successful as they are.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
We're going to do a whole episode on the NIL
and how it affects the NFL because it's now real. Yeah,
but to finish what you start. And I heard that too,
and I thought, man, it's gold. And then he said
the block Are. Yeah, he goes the block Are, which
is Rutgers, and I decide, it's so awesome. But when
you get to the National Football League, you're not just
moving around every year. You finish what you start, and
(12:37):
so somewhere there has to be a transition to that feeling.
And most of the guys on our team already have it,
and I think it's one of the reasons we've been
able to win oh nine games when it's one possession
or oh down ten points three times in Super Bowls
and coming back to win. We talk about winning one
hundred different ways. That's another way you finish what you start,
(12:58):
and you create that every day that in the building
or have that kind of feeling. Okay, what were your
thoughts after at least a snippet of OTA's Phase three.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So the Chiefs the way they do it is there's
ten OTA practices, right, and they only open some to
the media, So most of them are closed where no
one's allowed to watch them or report on them. But
today was the very first one that was open to
the media. So we can't get like too deep into it,
Like we are not allowed to talk about position groupings
or who's with the first or second team because the
(13:30):
coaches would say, right now they're rotating everyone. We can't
talk about that stuff. Well, we can't talk about is
individual performances. And there were some things that really stood
out to me today that were impressive. The first being
Patrick Mahomes looked awesome. And here's the thing. You might
be listening to this and say, well, yeah, obviously he's
Patrick Mahomes. I think it's so important not to normalize
what he does in the player that he is and
(13:52):
the fact that he is here in late May treating
it like an end the season practice, Like did you
get that sense when he was out there like he
is treating it like we have a game on Sunday
and that's special.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is the most It is the trait of Patrick
Mahomes that is most taken for granted, not necessarily in
the Chiefs Kingdom, but outside. This is one of the
best athletes to ever play in any professional sport in
the history of our nation, history of the world. And
yet on a overcast Ota Phase three he was doing
(14:27):
exactly that. But I love what he said in his
media session today too. He said, when you have guys
that are already getting fitted for the gold jacket, and
he meant Travis Kelcey or Chris Jones, and they work
the way they do. When I try to impress upon
the players, veterans coming in from other teams, young players, rookies,
(14:49):
he goes, they'll pay attention. Yeah, but it's the way
Pat does, who's already going to be in a gold jacket,
that approaches it like it's his first day of junior
high all practice. I love him for it, Yeah, and
I just think it's it's way underrated. So I'm with you.
It's exciting to watch him and what he does and
how he galvanizes galvanizes everybody on this team to get
(15:12):
him to where he wants them to go.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
These practices are voluntary.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Nobody has to be here and if you look around
the league, there's a lot of teams and a lot
of players that just don't show up to these or
they don't take them seriously. Patrick Mahomes takes it seriously.
And like you said, if you're any other player on
this roster and you see Patrick Mahomes taking it as
seriously as he does, you better take it seriously too.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
So anyway, all forty three of the defensive players were
here to do. How cool is that all forty.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Three defensive players on this roster we're here at OTA
Phase three. I'm not exactly sure I've ever seen that.
There's always somebody that's got some conflict or injury rehab.
All forty three defensive players are on the field.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I mean, if that doesn't fire you up, I don't
know what will. So anyway, a few other observations that
stuck out to me. I thought, Jalen Royal's had a
great day, and listen, he's a rookie. I'm not trying
to start a hype train. I'm just reporting on what
I saw here today when the guys were out there
in shorts and no pads and Jalen Royals looked the part.
He had a bunch of strong catches. He's really strong
(16:13):
through his upper body, like he just goes up there
and gets the football. And in my opinion, the play
of the day took place during I think it was
a seven on seven period during red zone where Mahomes
just kind of lifted it up and gave his guy
an opportunity to make a play in the back of
the end zone and Royals in traffic went up there
and got it and got both feet and bounds. Like
that's an awesome play by our rookie. And there's a
(16:34):
lot going on for receivers in this offense at this point,
like they're trying to keep their head above water. But
Royles just consistently was popping today. So he's a guy
that stock out. That stood out. Nico Romihio stood out
to me. We know a lot about Nico. Nico just
caught a bunch of passes and looked good out there
on the practice field. Let's see who else. Taekwon Thornton
(16:56):
was interesting. So Thornton signed with the practice squad last year.
You might remember he was kind of a high draft
pick of the Patriots a couple of years ago. Had
a blazing forty yard dash at the combine, so great speed.
He has a long, slender build, so you can go
up and get the football too. And this is his
opportunity now with the Chiefs, with the full offseason training program,
to try to make this team.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And he looked good to me.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
He made a couple of great catches deep down the
sideline during seven on seven that was impressive. And then defensively,
Omar Norman Lot, I think really looks the part. I'll
caveat it with this is not a camp where you
can really hit each other, as I keep saying, so
it's important to realize that the offensive and defensive lines,
it's like limited what you can do because there's no
live contact. You're in shorts and shells. So take it
(17:39):
with a grain of salt. But at least so far
here in early May, Omar Norman Lot was really impressive.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I thought, what you can see even though you're not
in full pads, you can see first step quickness. Oh yeah,
and you can see that in Norman Lot. Again, we
don't want to oversew it. Excited about its hard ninth
and I'll just tag my thing this way. One we
talked about how the way pat works. I think two
(18:04):
things here. One is the quick integration of the rookie class.
Josh Simmons is clearly way ahead of where I thought
he would be, and Coach even mentioned the same thing
I just didn't think he would be that. Don't again,
don't overreact. We're trying not to overreact.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Coach that he'd be ready for camp for sure, which
is crazy. We didn't think that.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
End and injury, Yeah, Brashad Smith and seeing what he
can do in his electric speed. But it seems like
he's integrating quickly Jelotti. When you look at Ashton Jelotti
integrating quickly, mentioned Norman Lott, Jalen Royals. We talk about
hand size. We do these things metric wise, we want
to measure, but we don't measure is hand strength. And
(18:47):
you mentioned his upper body strength. You can see it,
but it goes back to he was a basketball point guard,
so he was underrecruited. You see his hands and his
upper body strength, but his ability to snatch footballs and
have strength and contested catches is something that we want
to see as we move along. So and the other
thing I'll say before we get into Chris is that
(19:09):
Spags has the potential to be even more creative. There
is more mix and match opportunities. It's just like a
chef and you're giving him like ten more spices because
you and I have both seen it that Spags can
he can do some damage with this defense.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And this was the number two scoring defense in the
NFL last year. I don't it's difficult because I'm not
taking into account the last game of the season against
the Broncos, which actually knocked us down to the number
four scoring defense in the league. I do not recognize
that because that was not real. It was like a
pre season game. So this was the number two scoring
defense in the NFL last year, and I think it's
way deeper than it was last season, just based on
(19:49):
our initial impressions of watching the guys, watching Noel Williams
at corner, watching Omar Norman Lott at defensive tackle, watching
Ashton Galotti at edge rusher, watching Jeffrey Bass and linebacker,
like we are way deeper in my opinion, and just
the ability to bring some guys back like Charles Minniho
being back on this team, Like what a luxury that.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Is to have a pass rusher like that. Part of
this defensive line rotation.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
So yeah, I just think this defense is still on
the up and up, and I think it's deeper than
it was last year. And I think that might be
my number one takeaway here from the first week of
OTAs is just that our depth is very impressive and
it's a matter of going out there and continuing to
improve and get better and grow as a team. But
that's my initial takeaway, and I think that should be
(20:32):
something that gets people very excited that the depth of
this team, I think is better than a team last
year which won fifteen games in the regular season and
went to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I'm glad you mentioned Williams and Bass. Every one of
these rookies is ahead of where I thought they would be.
And again, it reminds me of twenty twenty two. Don't
want to get ahead of ourselves, but these guys are
on the move in this rookie class. All right, let's
get to the matter at hand, and that is a
remarkable human being. Really in the interview, you're going to
(21:02):
hear this when you study what Christie has done in
his life to this point. There are very few humans
in our country that can have his LinkedIn page or
his resume and a very few in the National Football League.
I say it all the time publicly and privately. The
Chiefs have been able to consistently win seventy five percent
(21:22):
win percentage. I show this bar graph when I speak publicly. Now,
the winningest percentage of any team in professional sports, at
least MLB and the ANBA.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's crazy. It is crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But one of the reasons is the guy we're going
to talk about, and he's just fascinating to me. This
is one of those again, send it, Send the link
to your friend because they're going to want to listen
to this. You don't have to be a super nerd,
but this is a giant reason of why the Kansas
City Chiefs win consistently. Matt, I'm so excited about this
(21:57):
first time on defending the Kingdom, to get this extraordinary
human being with us. And it's Chris shay Our, Senior
vice president for football Operations and Strategy. Now, Chris, I'm
going to intro like this. If people want to look
up your LinkedIn page, it will crash their server. This
is only my thirty second year in the NFL. There's
no one like you. You've coached, you were a team manager.
(22:20):
You were an equipment manager on the original nineteen ninety
five Carolina Panthers, or assistant manager you've been, You're an attorney,
you were a corrections officer. Let's see what else. You've
worked with six five other teams other than the Panthers.
Now with us, you've been with the NFL Management Council
dealing with overtime, looking at reviews, and a salary cap
(22:42):
and now you do everything for us, including negotiation and
salary cap all of those amazing things. How much of
that leads to your success in what you're doing now
because it will blow the normal human away.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, thanks for that very flattering introduction. It's awesome to
be on with you guys. I'm glad we can we
can do this today. Yeah. I've been very fortunate to
build what has turned out to be from the ground
up well rounded perspective on what goes on in a
football organization. And you know, some of it wasn't necessarily
(23:18):
planned out from the beginning to to be the path
that I took. But now that I'm here, I've been
very fortunate to be able to, uh, you know, have
all those experiences with some really incredible people and really
great places. Uh, like you said, UH started off you know, well,
first of all, I started off as a really unathletic
(23:39):
high school football player in Massachusetts. Then became a student
manager at Boston College. Thought I wanted to pursue a
career in coaching. I coached high school ball. I coached
at Harvard, worked with great people there, some of whom
are in the NFL, or really many of whom are
in the NFL now or have been and had an
opportunity to get into NFELL scouting from you know, college
(24:03):
coaching and recruiting background, and I've weaved you know, for
the last twenties, geez, twenty five plus, I guess, twenty
seven years in and out of scouting, picking up a
lot of degree, learning about the salary cap, you know.
The whole time I've been in the NFL. The most
important thing that I've or the most fortunate thing that
(24:26):
has happened to me, is I've had great mentors, Hall
of Fame, super Bowl winning coaches. In college. I worked
for Tom Coughlin, you know. In the NFL, I've of
course coach Read, one of the greatest coaches of all time.
I've also worked for coach Parcels. So those are three
super Bowl winning coaches there, Coach Peterson in Philadelphia when
(24:48):
I was with the Eagles, but also Super Bowl winning
executives like Brett and Howie Roseman and Bill Pollian when
I was with the Panthers years and years ago. So
I've had excellent role models and great people to learn
from and being able to have spent time and everything
from equipment to coaching, to recruiting in college, to pro
(25:09):
scout in college, scouting, cap league teams, all these different things.
It allows me to have a really broad perspective. But
you know, I feel really blessed that I'm here and
I work for someone like Brett who allows me to
bring my opinions on a variety of fronts to bear
in helping provide him with information as he makes his decisions.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
How to go as a corrections officer. I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
That was incredible. So my freshman and sophomore years in
high school, I worked My summer job was I worked
as a corrections officer. So the full time folks were
taking vacation and they needed help in the summer, and
the pay was great. It was a little it was
a little riskier than normal summer jobs, but it was
a I'll put it this way, Nothing we do in
(25:56):
football is as stressful as that.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Well, I want to get back to football. You mentioned
Brett Beach. How'd you first meet Brett? Because I think
you knew Brett before your time with the Chiefs. And
also tell me about your working relationship today because you
guys worked together every single day.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Sure, sure, so you know Brett and I didn't overlap
at the Eagles before I joined the Chiefs. I was
at the Eagles for two seasons and Brett and Coach
Reid and the whole crew that had come over with
Coach Reid were already here. But we had a lot
of mutual friends who had connected us, and I hadn't
(26:30):
worked with him, but I had gotten to know him
immediately prior to coming here and had a lot of
respect for what our mutual friends thought of him. And
then I arrived in twenty seventeen and it just took
off from there. We've had a seamless working relationship since.
It's fortunately he's allowed me as I as I mentioned earlier,
(26:56):
to have an opinion across a broad array of top
but really it's about he as a general manager, knocks
down silos and lets all of his staff participate in
uh you know, the team building process, the meetings that
we have, uh and create open dialogue. Worked with uh,
(27:17):
you know, Brett and Brent Tillis for a long time.
The three of us were uh you know, uh obviously
negotiating and designing every contract that we've done here since
Brett has been the general manager. UH. And that continues
now that Brent has moved on, and we continue to
work with with other great people in the salary cap
side of things. Uh, Jack Walloff and Ryan Herman UH
(27:40):
work closely with Brett and I on all matters and
football administration. But really it comes down to Brett creates
a seamless relationship with all of his employees. I'm included
in that, and we have just ongoing dialogue on a
constant basis about you know, the day's immediate business, but
also long term planning and strategy.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
One thing Mitch and I joke around about is we
imagine your relationship as if Brett just wants to do
stuff and he's like, Chris, find a way to make
this work. Like I think about like the Tyrone Matthew
contract years ago, and like the Jujus Schuster contract, Like, Hey, Chris,
I want to sign this guy.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Can we make this work? Does that kind of thing
happen often?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yes? Really, what we do? You know we have Brett
has great instincts as a team builder and general manager,
and you know the strategy and philosophy of team building
that he and Andy have coach read. You know, it's
been proven to win in the league for decades. And
(28:39):
Brett's eye for talent is outstanding. So when he has
somebody that he wants to add, obviously that's that's something
that I have faith in working out. But bigger picture,
Brett as a general manager, he may have players he
wants to add, but he's always looking at trying to
figure out how it fits into the bigger picture of
(29:00):
the larger puzzle of how to build a sustainably competitive
Super Bowl organization. So while he may be very excited
about signing a particular player, he does a good job
of taking a step back and seeing the big picture. So,
you know, we have dialogue about those type of signings
all the time. But it's in no way is it
(29:23):
isn't me holding him back from doing things. It's just
we always talk about the the ramifications of decisions we
make and how it affects the planet.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Sure we blurred your background just because it's like a
beautiful mind the movie. There's all these algorithms behind you
that are your law review articles. But it's so exciting
for Matt and me to put you in front of
the Chiefs Kingdom because you're such a vital part of
our winning and winning consistently. But I want to ask
(29:51):
you just about trades and put off trades, whether it's draft.
We've seen Brett be very aggressive on draft week throughout
the draft weekend, but then other trades and how those
work and how you can even pull them off.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Sure well, so, of course Brett has the ultimate authority
to decide whether or not we're trading a player or
a pick, but one of the key duties that he's
delegated to me is to analyze trades, the market for trades.
I work closely with Mark Richards, who oversees our player
(30:28):
personnel analytics, on analyzing historical trades for either players or
draft picks. We prepare that research to put Brett in
a position where when we're making decisions in a pressurized
(30:50):
environment like the draft we have an idea of wherever
we move in the draft before we get there. Wherever
we move, what it should take. Of course, it's fluid,
and we build, you know, various things like with computer
interfaces with our information technology department to allow us to
(31:11):
fluidly analyze trades as they happen, to update the history
of trades as they occur. But ultimately my role in
all trades is to tell Brett whether I think it's
fair for what we're trying to accomplish. Many trades, I'm
actually negotiating them with the other team, particularly in the draft,
(31:31):
but we have a great to get into draft day.
We have a great group of executives here at the
Chiefs that we're all working on trades together, and ultimately
I may be on the phone with a team, Brett
may be on the phone with a team. Also, Mike Bradway,
Tim Terry, Ryan Nutt from our front office, all of
(31:52):
us may be talking to teams. I have Mark Richards
and Ryan Herman with me during the draft to analyze
trades with me. All those all that information comes to
Brett through me, and ultimately I give him a thumbs
up thumbs down on what I think of the trade
and he has to make a decision. And sometimes he'll
(32:13):
make a decision that maybe makes sense based on what
the draft board looks like, but you know, historically we're
taking a little less value, or we're we're you know,
maybe moving around in a way that if your nitpicky
about draft points on some arbitrary chart, might not make sense.
(32:35):
But he has a great feel for merging the draft
board together with what the history of trades are and
we combine all that information really, really well, and it's
a testament to the whole group, not just me. And then,
of course we also have another key part of our
football administration group, Jack Walloff, in the draft room, who
executes the paperwork of the trades. So when Brett decides
(32:57):
he wants, you know, we'll be fielding calls for potentially,
you know, an hour before we pick. We're always on
the phone about exploring what would cost to go up
or go back in all directions with almost every pick
that we have, And when we finally pull the trigger,
Brett will give the thumbs up and we'll phone it
into the league. Usually I'm the one calling it into
(33:18):
the NFL, and the other team does it too, and
then boom, we picked the player and go from there.
With player trades, it's a little slower moving, but the
same process is basically in place where we haven't an
If we are ever involved in another player wanting to
acquire one of our players or vice versa, we inform
ourselves about what the history of trades looks like at
(33:39):
that position, that time of year, the type of and
also involving what type of contract that player has will
inform Brett. And sometimes Brett's talking to another general manager.
Sometimes I'm talking to my counterparts, you know. Sometimes when
Mike Borganzi was here, he'd be talking to a person
at a team. But we all come together and we
(34:01):
function as one unit, and it's ultimately uh breat you know,
driving the train, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
It's beyond fascinating.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's awesome, that really is.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And including uh in your job description is the salary
cap obviously also very fascinating. I do this for a living.
I try to understand it. The salary cap is so confusing, though,
Can you explain how you begin to interpret the cap
and to manage it for our team?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Sure? Well, uh one, So you know, in really broad strokes,
the salary cap of course, is you know, a collectively
bargained restraint on what we can spend on players. But
really it's a revenue share too. It's the players get
a certain percentage of the pie and the owners retain
a certain percentage of the pie to spend on everything else.
(34:49):
But within the rules of how you can spend money. Uh,
it's it takes a lot of planning and having multiple
people like redundancy and just making sure that you're accounting
for every contract the right way. I don't mean to
suggest that, uh it isn't complicated, but it's not that
(35:11):
complicated if I can do so. So what basically what
we do is we have you know, we're always looking
at how contracts count against our uh cap uh and
also our cash budgets, you know, because we only have
a certain amount of cash that we can spend that
Clark provides us every year, and myself and the group
(35:34):
that works on football administration here uh led by Jack
Walloff who's a mastermind on understanding player markets, and you know,
keeping track of how everything counts against our cap. We
we make sure that we are maintaining for Brett and Clark, UH,
you know, a three year plan all the time on
how our cap looks this year in the following two,
(35:58):
so that we understand the ramifications of any contract that
we sign or any transaction that we enter into. Having
said that, though it once you've worked with it for
a while, understanding just how the rules work within the
spreadsheet becomes a little bit second nature. But there are
(36:19):
a lot of moving parts. It's really just a set
of accounting rules. And however, the big overarching theme that
we have here is that decisions about the roster should
be driven by football. Yeah, we have a limitation on
what we can spend on players and how we spend it,
(36:40):
but we try to make sure that the salary cap
isn't driving decisions so much as which players we like
to keep drive decisions.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
It's been apparent now for thirteen years, how you guys
have been proactive with the cap instead of being reactive,
and we've seen teams go right down the tubes because
of it. My next question, Chris, deals with the third
part of a triangle that fans don't think about, and
that's dealing with agents. We know there's the league, we
know there's the teams, but then there's the agents. What
about the intricacies and the dynamics of that.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Well, you know, so, so I'm the principal contract negotiator here,
but Brett could be involved in talking to agents during
a negotiation. Jack Walloff, who I work with, maybe involved
in talking agents occasionally. Ryan Herman, who I work with,
is part of that group too. And you know, really
(37:36):
what it comes down to is this is a people
business and we're all going to do business over a
long period of time and have relationships that extend beyond
any one transaction or negotiation. So dealing with agents is
like in any other line of work, dealing with people
that you're going to have business dealings with on an
ongoing basis, building mutual respect and treating people the way
(38:01):
you'd want to be treated as a core aspect of
how Brett and I go about the business here of
negotiating our contracts. We're not always going to agree with
the other party in a negotiation, but we try not
to be disagreeable or disrespectful. But you know, there can
be tough, stressful moments as we try to work out,
you know, keeping our players here or signing outsiders who
(38:24):
haven't been here previously. But it all comes down to
people skills and trying to develop good relationships and develop
trust with the other party so that you can reach
win win agreements for everybody.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Do you ever get a break, Chris, Because when you're
a team like us that goes to the Super Bowl
hopefully every year, it's free agency in the draft right
after that, then we jump into camp and OTAs and
training camp and it all starts over again.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Do you ever get a break?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well, there's not a lot of work life balance in
this business, but that's what we've chosen, you know, God
bless all of our wives and family. But yeah, I
mean we do have some downtime, particularly between Mini camp
and the start of training camp. You know, we tend
(39:12):
to have time out of the office. Now that doesn't
mean necessarily that we have all of our business taken
care of, and we may have a contract negotiation that
pops up in that period. So we take the downtime
where we can get it. But I'd much rather have
the problem with us running deep into February each year
in the season, in the postseason and having to deal
(39:33):
with that problem of you know, having to quickly turn
the table into the off season, then having a lot
of free time in January and February, for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, definitely a first world problem. Yeah, question, Chris, And
you've been so kind with your time. I think you're
like Brett and coach and the you sleep half brain
at a time like a dolphin. And I think you
still coach your daughter's basketball team, or at least, But
I want to ask you, we're setting here now, when
we post this, we'll be on the cusp of going
(40:03):
to Phase three of O. T A's and we're going
to morph into the mandatory mini camp and then into
that plant shutdown and the closest thing the NFL has
right now, what has to happen, in your opinion, with
you and your cohorts from now until the start of
training camp. That is top, top of mind, top priority.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Sure, well, so Brett, myself, all the front office. We're
evaluating the team on the field during these during the
voluntary off season program, so that that's a piece of
data that we're taking in just as we think about
the future. That's immediate. That's every day the players are
out here, you know, working out even now in as
(40:44):
we speak today. You know, we've been through Phase one.
Now we're finishing phase two and getting into phase three.
The from the football administration salary cap side of things,
you know, we have some ongoing contract and go with
players without getting into specifics, those include folks like the
(41:04):
unsigned rookie draft picks. We have a few of them signed,
we don't have all of them signed. So those negotiations,
you know, all have different cadences and timetables, and there
are different things that are getting negotiated, different maybe hold
ups and timing with all those things. But from here
through training camp, getting those negotiations resolved, whether that's in
(41:26):
a new contract or or or not remains to be seen.
But all that business needs to be taken care of
before we get to Saint Joe or before certainly in
some instances even potentially we may be getting some of
the say, undrafted rookie content or I'm sorry, the drafted
(41:46):
rookie contracts done even sooner than that. From a from
a more of an operational perspective, getting past just evaluating
the team and contracts, this is a good time for
an after action analysis of free agency, the draft, the season.
What can we do better? Brett and the player personnel staff,
(42:09):
all of us are working on. How did we go
about doing our business last year, where can we improve
That applies not just to how we scout, but how
we take in and ingest the scouting information, information from analytics,
the cap to present to Brett so that we have
the best possible plan for free agency and the draft
(42:29):
in twenty twenty six. So there'll be some of that,
but yeah, it's top of mind just getting what contract
business we have done while also planning for the future.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
You have been so gracious with your time, and Matt
and I are so excited to present you to the Kingdom.
I always say publicly, we win for a hundred reasons
and you're a big part of that. So thanks for
coming here and having such an impact on a footprint
on the Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Well, thank you very much for having me. You know,
I'm just one of the several good guys that and
end gals that Brett has working for him, and I'm
also lucky enough to work with Coach Reid. So I
feel really blessed and fortunate to be a part of
the Kingdom and I'm glad to be on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We're still going through your resume, but we're on page seven.
Just give us some time, so Thanks my friend, stay
on on it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Thanks Chris, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Thanks Chris. Everybody I think now has an idea at
least a better idea of who Chris che is, what
he does, and why he helps us win. I think
he's fascinating. I think he's remarkable. I love it that
he's ours.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I think it's super cool.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
I think it's so funny that he was talking about
the cap and he's like, well, once you get a
hang of it, it's not that complex. I'm like, Chris,
it's pretty complex, and it's a testament to your intelligence
and how incredible you are at your job that you
can navigate this, just like at second nature. He's amazing,
and you know they're like you always say, there are
so many reasons behind the Chiefs winning over the last
(44:00):
several years, and Brett Veach is one of the primary reasons.
But I think he would be the first to say
that he has amazing people around him that can help
him achieve what he wants to do. And Chris is
so good at keeping the long term vision in mind
but saying, hey, we want to add this player or
we want to go get this draft pick. Or make
this trade. How does it fit into what we do?
(44:22):
How does it fit into what we want to be
doing three years from now. And the reason the Chiefs
have been able to sustain success for so long, which
is the hardest thing to do in the NFL, is
because we are never saying it's all about twenty twenty five.
We're never saying that twenty twenty five we have a
chance to win a super Bowl, and we also have
a chance to win a super Bowl in twenty twenty six,
(44:42):
in twenty twenty seven, in twenty twenty eight because of
this crew and what they're doing and how they're always
thinking ahead.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, he's remarkable, he's outstanding. And again send it down
the line because people need to know the assistant general
manager now has he've got a promotion of the case,
how many people do you I know in any endeavor was? Oh,
I don't know. Equipment manager, equipment helper. He played, he coached,
he's a lawyer. He worked for the NFL in salary
(45:12):
cap compliance basically, and he's been in personnel, he's coached,
and now he's an assistant general manager role and I'm leaving,
like ten thoods.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Did you mention the corrections officer.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
No, he's a corrections officer. Okay, just throw that one
in there if anybody in the league goes, oh, we
got that guy too, Hey, was he a corrections officer? Okay,
stand down, we have Chris Shay, he's ours. You can't
have it.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Well.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
I think what's so impressive too is Coach Reid has
the same demeanor where they are so friendly and approachable,
but you respect them, you know. And I think his
background has lent itself to that kind of vibe around him,
where you know, this guy is brilliant and you want
to make sure you do right by him and don't
(45:57):
let him down. But at the same time, he is
a pro. He is friendly. He asked you how your
day is going. Very rarely do you find people like that,
And we have multiple people like that with that demeanor
in positions of power in this building. And I just
think it goes a long way in any field, but
especially here in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Why do we win consistently? Two of the one hundred
reasons OTAs and Chris Chey
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