AFC West Rumors: Chiefs, Dorsey, Veach

Here’s a look at the AFC West following the Chiefs‘ surprising GM shakeup: 

• Chiefs co-director of player personnel Brett Veach is the name to watch in the team’s GM search, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). Veach was widely identified as a candidate for the opening on Thursday, but it sounds like he has an early lead over the rest.
• Several sources in the know say that John Dorsey didn’t know the Chiefs were going to fire him this week, Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports tweets. The Chiefs reportedly weren’t pleased with how Dorsey handled contract negotiations with stars like Justin Houston and Eric Berry, but Dorsey still did not believe that his job was in jeopardy.
• The Raiders‘ commitment of $40MM guaranteed at signing for Derek Carr is nothing to sneeze at, but the team got a level of flexibility that you don’t see with some of the other quarterback contracts out there, Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap writes. Before the third year of the deal, the Raiders could theoretically walk away from Derek Carr and take on just $7.5MM in dead money. Because he’ll effectively be going year-to-year, the deal has some similarities to Colin Kaepernick‘s 49ers contract and that’s not necessarily great for the player. Carr did get some financial security with his new deal, but Fitzgerald feels that quarterbacks need a new champion to really push the market. That could come in a matter of weeks when/if Matthew Stafford inks a new deal with Detroit.