The Kansas City Chiefs have met with hundreds of 2025 NFL Draft prospects during the pre-draft process, including 30 players who were brought to Kansas City for what are commonly referred to as top-30 visits.
How does the team utilize its 30 allotted prospect visits each year? According to Chiefs GM Brett Veach, it’s all about spending time with a player to learn more about them.

“Every opportunity you have to spend with a player, I find to be valuable,” Veach explained. “I know some teams don’t even do 30 visits, but I’m just kind of a believer that the more time you spend with a prospect, the more you get to know them. Even if it’s a little bit — a little bit is better than nothing.”

During Veach’s tenure as general manager, the team has selected several players who were brought in for top-30 visits, including Kingsley Suamataia, Rashee Rice, BJ Thompson, Jaylen Watson, Joshua Williams, Nick Bolton, and Juan Thornhill. Just because a player is brought in for a top-30 visit, it doesn’t necessarily increase the likelihood that a player will or won’t be picked in the draft.

The Chiefs use their visits in various ways, but they tend to have three specific categories that apply each year.

“It starts off with the guys that are not Combine invites that we think are draftable that don’t have a medical,” Veach explained. “Then it goes to the guys that didn’t get enough time with, then it goes to the guys that our doctors want to see more on. We use it in a variety of ways, but those are typically the three buckets that they fall in.”

A deeper dive into how the Chiefs handle top-30 visits

There are only so many touchpoints that teams have with draft prospects during the pre-draft process where they can gather the data they need. One of the major ones is the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. While fans get the performative aspect of it on their television sets, the real work happens when the cameras aren’t rolling.

One of the most important pieces of that puzzle is medical examinations. For players who don’t attend the Combine, that’s a missing piece that the team often wants and needs.

“I think the primary focus of the 30 visits are the guys that we really like that didn’t get invited to the (NFL) Combine,” Veach said. “That’s purely for medical (reasons); the Combine participants all have the same medical evaluation process that is done in Indianapolis. We all get that information. We look at it, we talk to our doctors, and we talk about the risks in guys that we’re concerned about. However, there’s a ton of guys that don’t get invited to the Combine, they have no medical on (them) so if you like that guy – and that’s varying ranges, I mean there’s guys that don’t get invited to the Combine in years past that we had in the third round. There are a ton of guys that we had in the sixth or seventh, and we just bring them in just in case we draft them late. So, that’s probably the primary reason we bring those guys.”

The NFL Scouting Combine is also not a perfect science. As structured as the formal interview process is, sometimes the results can vary. You get 20 minutes with a player, and sometimes, what you get isn’t enough. Veach explained that they often bring in some players they had formal interviews with to get more out of them.

“That 20 minutes goes fast,” Veach told reporters. “Sometimes these kids are boom, they’re right there, we get right into it, we ask questions about their upbringing and all that kind of stuff – you feel good. There’s a lot of guys though where you look and they leave and you’re like, ‘I didn’t get anything out of that,’ and some of these guys I want to bring in and learn more. That happens every year, so it’s just guys that we just didn’t get a great feel for or maybe, you know you only get so many of these formal interviews allotted to you and there were probably – every year we have like 10 guys that – you hand these in, you know there’s a cutoff date and every year there’s always like, ‘Oh we shouldn’t have added this guy because we’re fine with guy, we should have added this guy.’ So then we’re just like, ‘Alright, we’ll just bring him in for a 30. Right, no big deal.’

Whether it’s additional medical, additional face time, or an opportunity to meet with a non-Combine prospect, the Chiefs use their visits in practical ways.

“Sometimes I think people look too far into it, but certainly there’s a reason why we’re bringing them in,” Veach said.

Sometimes, there’s also a reason why a prospect isn’t brought in or doesn’t have any contact with the Chiefs leading up to the draft. . .

Chiefs CB Trent McDuffie’s NFL draft experience is something to keep fans on their toes

The Chiefs have a reputation for being very efficient in their pre-draft process.

They didn’t spend much time on the quarterback class this year, knowing they’re set with Patrick Mahomes as a starter. They certainly didn’t spend time meeting with Miami QB Cam Ward, for instance. The team also holds no illusions about blue chip prospects at other positions who they believe to be out of their draft range.

In the 2022 NFL Draft, for instance, the Chiefs felt that CB Trent McDuffie would be long gone before they’d get into range for a trade-up. Because of that, they didn’t invest much time in the pre-draft process. They didn’t formally meet at the NFL Scouting Combine or bring him to Kansas City on a top-30 visit. In fact, McDuffie hadn’t even spoken to anyone notable in the building before he got the call to learn he was drafted by the Chiefs.

“I did not think I was going first round, I thought I was going day two,” McDuffie said. “So I was like, night one, let’s all just get together, enjoy the draft. Like, have fun, enjoy the hoopla, watch the show, and see where it ends. And yeah, during the night. I mean, I was really chilling, like I was on the couch watching everybody get drafted, talking to my agent, talking to my family, and then I remember my phone went off. It was Kansas City. I was already like, ‘Whoa.’ Like, I didn’t know they were on the (clock). I didn’t know that was a team that was looking at me. And, yeah, I just remember picking it up. I talked to (Brett) Veach, talked to Coach (Andy) Reid, talked to Spags (Steve Spagnuolo). I always say during that phone call, it’s funny because I look back and like, I didn’t really know who I was talking to. I didn’t know who the coaches were, who Veach was. I had zero communication. So like, for me, the Chiefs, that was like my first time even hearing their voices.”

As important as the information gathered during pre-draft meetings and 30 visits is, it doesn’t always signal interest. In fact, the opposite could prove true for a player that the team valued highly and didn’t expect to be available at their pick. That might not be the case for a year like 2025, where the team only has 12-13 first-round grades. But it’s certainly something that fans should note for the future.