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https://www.forbes.com/sites/leighs...teams-make-draft-decisions-pt-1/#bf01d7d4b24c
Behind Closed Doors: How Do NFL Teams Make Draft Decisions Pt. 1
The NFL Draft will be held a week from today in Philadelphia which will culminate a lengthy and exhaustive scouting process. The draft is one of the few ways teams have to enhance their rosters and has long been considered the basic building block for the future. How do teams make their decisions in terms of who to select? Teams with multiple needs like the Cleveland Browns may try and aggregate multiple picks in the draft to remake their roster. Championship teams like the New England Patriots may downgrade the draft altogether in favor of getting proven veteran starters. Whatever the philosophy a franchise uses, the first key is scouting college players. Accurately assessing the future potential of a college player takes unique talent and judgment.
Teams have a Director of Player Personnel or Head of College Scouting and a number of scouts reporting to him that are the primary evaluators. Additionally, they subscribe to one of two major scouting combines, National or Blesto, which provide detailed scouting reports shared with other teams. They assign a numerical grade to a player based on factors like size, speed, strength, athletic ability, agility, and character. Scouts attend spring ball and each regular season game. While the focus is on seniors, scouts are not blindfolded while watching underclassman performing in games. Since players are allowed into the draft three years after their high school class graduates, the most talented juniors and redshirt sophomores are likely to enter the draft.
Once the team bowl games finish, an elaborate second season of scouting begins. Players go off to training facilities to prepare for the process. Seniors and actual graduates can play in January all-star games like the Senior Bowl, East-West Game or NFLPA game. The practices are heavily scouted as well as the game, and the week provides direct head on head comparisons. Every year, up to 335 of the nation's top NFL prospects (330 in 2017) are invited to the Super Bowl of Scouting, the Scouting Combine, in Indianapolis during the first week of March. Players are weighed and measured and given extensive physicals with multiple physicians. Players then have 15-minute meetings with a team's brain trust where intelligence, attitude and game knowledge are probed. Players start by taking intelligence tests. The players are then tested in a 40-yard dash, a 225 lb bench press, a vertical leap, a broad jump and lateral movement drills. The NFL is in love with speed, therefore, a fast 40 impacts scouts dynamically, and then the players perform their position drills. Every owner, team executive, coach, position coach and scout with any draft influence are present for this event.
Pro Scouting Days are held in March on each college campus. Players not invited to the combine and those who participated who want to enhance their results have a chance to do the exact same testing process used at the combine. Teams can return to campus later to work out a player individually and meet with him to gauge character, personality and chalkboard skills. They may bring a delegation including their owner, head coach, executives and position coach in the case of a player they are serious about. In the month of April, franchises can have as many as 30 prospects visit their facility. No workouts are allowed, simply verbal interaction.
The draft is a projection as to how a player will perform over the next ten years in the pros. It is not a merit badge awarded for conspicuous college performance. Contracts for high draft picks will involve guaranteed money and cap charges. Teams desperately want to avoid a player who through injury, or on-or-off the field behavior, cannot perform. Extensive security checks are done into a player's background, in some cases all the way back to elementary school. Potential lingering injuries or pre-existing conditions are checked and rechecked.
After each step of the scouting process, a player's numerical rating may be reassessed. Teams have a Draft Board which may list every player in order of that numerical rating regardless of playing position, and then break down the ratings by every position.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leighs...teams-make-draft-decisions-pt-2/#2b11fad94c09
Behind Closed Doors: How Do NFL Teams Make Draft Decisions Pt. 2
The comprehensive scouting process of college players for Thursday's NFL Draft is largely complete and franchises have assembled their Draft Boards. A variety of scouts, assistant coaches, Head Coaches, and Executives have weighed in on the rankings. The final call as to whom a team selects in each round may be exercised by a General Manager, Team President, or Head Coach, depending on each team's power structure. One year the Raiders had everyone in their draft room vote on which player the team should select. 8 people voted for a kicker, one voted for a quarterback. They ended up selecting the quarterback who happened to go by the name, Al Davis. Teams identify and prioritize their needs by position. Some teams follow the theory of drafting the highest ranked numerical player available when their turn comes, regardless of position. This theory argues that by taking the best talent year after year a team may have a significantly more gifted roster and can deal in other ways for team needs. Other teams draft for their highest prioritized position needs, knowing that position upgrade is vital.
Teams then can run through computer simulations, which will project every possible combination of players that may be available on each of their seven picks. They can then think through what they would do in each decision-making situation. For example, it is rumored that the Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns, the team that possesses the first overall pick in this years draft, wants to select DT Myles Garrett, while the front office wants to pick QB Mitchell Trubisky. This should be settled before draft time, as on-the-clock internecine warfare is rare. The great variable is the ability to trade pick positions. Years ago storied Coach Bill Walsh developed a trade chart which assigned a value to each of the picks in the seven rounds of the draft. This allowed teams to rationally figure out what a move up or down to a different draft position should equate to in gaining or losing draft picks.
Teams in the first round are each allocated ten minutes per choice. Draft time is not real-time, and for draftees and their families, it is like water torture time. Drip, drip, drip. Seconds seem like minutes, minutes seem like hours. Drip, drip, drip. Viewers may ask themselves how teams can need that much time to make decisions after months to consider prospects. What teams are actually doing in that time is fielding trade offers. A team that covets a player who will be available later in the round will try and trade down with a team worried that its choice won't be available when their turn comes. The team trading up swaps picks and gives up an additional later pick or picks. A successful team may be only a player or two away from the Super Bowl, while a rebuilding team may need as many draft picks as possible to upgrade. First round draft picks are heavily scrutinized by the public, press, and ownership. Choosing a player who is a "bust" can detract from the reputation of the drafter and too many bad picks can result in that individual being fired. There is an especially high risk in choosing a quarterback. The League is quarterback-centric and it is difficult to get to the Super Bowl without a franchise quarterback. Quarterback play is very visible to even the most casual fan and everyone has an opinion as to how the quarterback is faring.
It is not only first and second round draft picks that are the key to building a team. The salary cap creates pay structures, which has a few players paid massive packages while many more sit at minimum salaries. Therefore third through seventh round draft picks have become more important than ever, and teams need them to make the roster.
Draft prognosticators heavily influence public perception as to how players are rated, but remember they do not have teams. Their predictions are interesting and entertaining but teams do not generally share their true intentions with the press and public. They are trying to keep their strategy a secret. There is a generalized amnesty for misleading the public by executives in pre-draft statements. Prognosticators originally grouped three top quarterbacks ahead of the pack this year, with our client Patrick Mahomes seen as a cut below, a probable second rounder. But the draft is individual teams drafting individually, and Mahomes has had productive visits in late scouting. It is more important for a player to have a few teams absolutely in love with him and the rest not interested than be considered good by all 32. If it were possible to compare team draft boards there would be wide variance on how different teams rate the same player. Watch and see whether the prognosticators were correct.
One of the intriguing aspects of the draft is that the teams are all separated. If a player is predicted to go in a certain position in the draft and is not selected it can result in a "plummeting draft pick". Teams don't know why the player is slipping and begin fearing that there is some physical or behavioral problem that they are not aware of. There is no time to check out the problem so teams pass and down the player slides.
Lastly, remember that the brain trusts for each team are located in a room at their franchises. The people you see sitting in Philadelphia at tables with team helmets that relay the picks are team personnel who are not involved in the selection.
Behind Closed Doors: How Do NFL Teams Make Draft Decisions Pt. 1
The NFL Draft will be held a week from today in Philadelphia which will culminate a lengthy and exhaustive scouting process. The draft is one of the few ways teams have to enhance their rosters and has long been considered the basic building block for the future. How do teams make their decisions in terms of who to select? Teams with multiple needs like the Cleveland Browns may try and aggregate multiple picks in the draft to remake their roster. Championship teams like the New England Patriots may downgrade the draft altogether in favor of getting proven veteran starters. Whatever the philosophy a franchise uses, the first key is scouting college players. Accurately assessing the future potential of a college player takes unique talent and judgment.
Teams have a Director of Player Personnel or Head of College Scouting and a number of scouts reporting to him that are the primary evaluators. Additionally, they subscribe to one of two major scouting combines, National or Blesto, which provide detailed scouting reports shared with other teams. They assign a numerical grade to a player based on factors like size, speed, strength, athletic ability, agility, and character. Scouts attend spring ball and each regular season game. While the focus is on seniors, scouts are not blindfolded while watching underclassman performing in games. Since players are allowed into the draft three years after their high school class graduates, the most talented juniors and redshirt sophomores are likely to enter the draft.
Once the team bowl games finish, an elaborate second season of scouting begins. Players go off to training facilities to prepare for the process. Seniors and actual graduates can play in January all-star games like the Senior Bowl, East-West Game or NFLPA game. The practices are heavily scouted as well as the game, and the week provides direct head on head comparisons. Every year, up to 335 of the nation's top NFL prospects (330 in 2017) are invited to the Super Bowl of Scouting, the Scouting Combine, in Indianapolis during the first week of March. Players are weighed and measured and given extensive physicals with multiple physicians. Players then have 15-minute meetings with a team's brain trust where intelligence, attitude and game knowledge are probed. Players start by taking intelligence tests. The players are then tested in a 40-yard dash, a 225 lb bench press, a vertical leap, a broad jump and lateral movement drills. The NFL is in love with speed, therefore, a fast 40 impacts scouts dynamically, and then the players perform their position drills. Every owner, team executive, coach, position coach and scout with any draft influence are present for this event.
Pro Scouting Days are held in March on each college campus. Players not invited to the combine and those who participated who want to enhance their results have a chance to do the exact same testing process used at the combine. Teams can return to campus later to work out a player individually and meet with him to gauge character, personality and chalkboard skills. They may bring a delegation including their owner, head coach, executives and position coach in the case of a player they are serious about. In the month of April, franchises can have as many as 30 prospects visit their facility. No workouts are allowed, simply verbal interaction.
The draft is a projection as to how a player will perform over the next ten years in the pros. It is not a merit badge awarded for conspicuous college performance. Contracts for high draft picks will involve guaranteed money and cap charges. Teams desperately want to avoid a player who through injury, or on-or-off the field behavior, cannot perform. Extensive security checks are done into a player's background, in some cases all the way back to elementary school. Potential lingering injuries or pre-existing conditions are checked and rechecked.
After each step of the scouting process, a player's numerical rating may be reassessed. Teams have a Draft Board which may list every player in order of that numerical rating regardless of playing position, and then break down the ratings by every position.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leighs...teams-make-draft-decisions-pt-2/#2b11fad94c09
Behind Closed Doors: How Do NFL Teams Make Draft Decisions Pt. 2
The comprehensive scouting process of college players for Thursday's NFL Draft is largely complete and franchises have assembled their Draft Boards. A variety of scouts, assistant coaches, Head Coaches, and Executives have weighed in on the rankings. The final call as to whom a team selects in each round may be exercised by a General Manager, Team President, or Head Coach, depending on each team's power structure. One year the Raiders had everyone in their draft room vote on which player the team should select. 8 people voted for a kicker, one voted for a quarterback. They ended up selecting the quarterback who happened to go by the name, Al Davis. Teams identify and prioritize their needs by position. Some teams follow the theory of drafting the highest ranked numerical player available when their turn comes, regardless of position. This theory argues that by taking the best talent year after year a team may have a significantly more gifted roster and can deal in other ways for team needs. Other teams draft for their highest prioritized position needs, knowing that position upgrade is vital.
Teams then can run through computer simulations, which will project every possible combination of players that may be available on each of their seven picks. They can then think through what they would do in each decision-making situation. For example, it is rumored that the Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns, the team that possesses the first overall pick in this years draft, wants to select DT Myles Garrett, while the front office wants to pick QB Mitchell Trubisky. This should be settled before draft time, as on-the-clock internecine warfare is rare. The great variable is the ability to trade pick positions. Years ago storied Coach Bill Walsh developed a trade chart which assigned a value to each of the picks in the seven rounds of the draft. This allowed teams to rationally figure out what a move up or down to a different draft position should equate to in gaining or losing draft picks.
Teams in the first round are each allocated ten minutes per choice. Draft time is not real-time, and for draftees and their families, it is like water torture time. Drip, drip, drip. Seconds seem like minutes, minutes seem like hours. Drip, drip, drip. Viewers may ask themselves how teams can need that much time to make decisions after months to consider prospects. What teams are actually doing in that time is fielding trade offers. A team that covets a player who will be available later in the round will try and trade down with a team worried that its choice won't be available when their turn comes. The team trading up swaps picks and gives up an additional later pick or picks. A successful team may be only a player or two away from the Super Bowl, while a rebuilding team may need as many draft picks as possible to upgrade. First round draft picks are heavily scrutinized by the public, press, and ownership. Choosing a player who is a "bust" can detract from the reputation of the drafter and too many bad picks can result in that individual being fired. There is an especially high risk in choosing a quarterback. The League is quarterback-centric and it is difficult to get to the Super Bowl without a franchise quarterback. Quarterback play is very visible to even the most casual fan and everyone has an opinion as to how the quarterback is faring.
It is not only first and second round draft picks that are the key to building a team. The salary cap creates pay structures, which has a few players paid massive packages while many more sit at minimum salaries. Therefore third through seventh round draft picks have become more important than ever, and teams need them to make the roster.
Draft prognosticators heavily influence public perception as to how players are rated, but remember they do not have teams. Their predictions are interesting and entertaining but teams do not generally share their true intentions with the press and public. They are trying to keep their strategy a secret. There is a generalized amnesty for misleading the public by executives in pre-draft statements. Prognosticators originally grouped three top quarterbacks ahead of the pack this year, with our client Patrick Mahomes seen as a cut below, a probable second rounder. But the draft is individual teams drafting individually, and Mahomes has had productive visits in late scouting. It is more important for a player to have a few teams absolutely in love with him and the rest not interested than be considered good by all 32. If it were possible to compare team draft boards there would be wide variance on how different teams rate the same player. Watch and see whether the prognosticators were correct.
One of the intriguing aspects of the draft is that the teams are all separated. If a player is predicted to go in a certain position in the draft and is not selected it can result in a "plummeting draft pick". Teams don't know why the player is slipping and begin fearing that there is some physical or behavioral problem that they are not aware of. There is no time to check out the problem so teams pass and down the player slides.
Lastly, remember that the brain trusts for each team are located in a room at their franchises. The people you see sitting in Philadelphia at tables with team helmets that relay the picks are team personnel who are not involved in the selection.
