That, too, was part of the plan.

 That, too, was part of the plan.

Now, no one, not even Ron Wolf himself, could plan on having that sort of hit rate in the draft every year. But what Veach and his staff could do was create a margin for error by stockpiling picks, rather than dealing them away for veterans or higher picks. So, Veach says, he was still going to be aggressive—it just was going to be aggression pointed in a different direction.

“When Pat had that unbelievable ’18 season and he’s on his rookie deal, you’re trading for Frank Clark and signing Tyrann Mathieu,” Veach says. “You’re hyper-aggressive because you know how talented this quarterback is, and you know he’s in a rookie window, and you know that, within these couple years, you have a chance to really take a big swing at the fences.

“You’re still gonna have to have an aggressive plan. But that aggressive plan ain’t gonna be dropping a ton of money and trading a bunch of picks. That aggressive plan is gonna be the flip side. It’s gonna be not being afraid to move on from players and trying to aggressively acquire picks as opposed to aggressively trading them away and spending money.”