Trey Smith is in his third year as the starting right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs. He is one of the better run-blocking guards in the NFL and has been, unquestionably, one of the most durable players in the league at his position.
Smith fell to the Chiefs in the sixth round of the 2021 draft, mostly because of a heart condition that spooked teams from drafting him any earlier.
Appearing this week on the Green Light Podcast with Chris Long, former Raiders GM Mike Mayock explained how Smith slipped past the Raiders and into the hands of the back-to-back Super Bowl champions…
“It is kind of intriguing to me that 32 teams can get the exact same x-rays and the exact same medical, and yet they have differing opinions on whether or not a kid should be drafted…
The starting right guard for the world champion Kansas City Chiefs, Trey Smith, had a heart condition. He was at worst a second-round pick. He went in the sixth round to the Chiefs.
Meanwhile, I’ve got [Jon] Gruden punching me like ‘Let’s go. Let’s take this kid in the fifth or sixth [round]. He’s a first or second round player and our team doctors wouldn’t let us.
That’s just one example of how different teams look at the medical. Kansas City said ‘It’s late in the draft, we’ll take a chance.’ Our team said ‘No, we’re not going to do that because it a heart. It’s not a knee.”
There would have been risks involved to taking a player like Smith, but the risk should have definitely outweighed the reward in the case of Trey Smith. The Chiefs got Smith with the 227th-overall pick and the Raiders selected center Jimmy Morrissey IV three picks later.
twitter: @raidersbeat
The Gruden/Mayock regime was very Keystone Kops or Benny Hill. Just a total dumpster fire
Then why was Maurice Hurst selected a few drafts prior by the Raiders with a heart condition?
Gruden controlled the raiders 100 percent. The poor drafting was on him not Mayock