thebandit27 Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I found this piece written by SB Nation to be extremely insightful with regard to how scouts, coaches, and GMs come together to construct their draft boards. It rings very authentic just based on what I've been told by contacts in the scouting community. Enjoy: http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/3/6/5473554/2014-nfl-draft-scouting-process-big-board Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.Biscuit97 Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 Very interesting but I think NFl teams just use Mel Kiper/ McShay's draft boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Miner Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 Hmm.. At best it's an incomplete article as I didn't see one reference to visiting message boards for expert fan insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Bills Fan Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 Great read. Thanks for posting CBF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjt328 Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 "The hardest thing we do is try to figure out what's in a man's heart," John Schneider says. "In the realm of scouting, the easiest things to do are the evaluations of the guys -- how he plays, what you think his future holds, how high his ceiling is, what his basement is. You can do all the work in the world, you can do every psychological test you possibly can, but at the end of the day, you don't truly know what's in a man's heart or how he's gonna react in a certain situation. You hope you have a really good feel for that. And hopefully, nine times out of 10, your psychological assessment is correct in how they're gonna handle certain situations. But you don't know." This was the part that stood out to me. People love to talk about "busts" and "steals" - and many fans like to pretend drafting is just a roll of the dice. The truth is, evaluating a player's overall talent isn't that tough. It's trying to predict which guys will be hardest workers at the next level, and which guys will try coasting. Tom Brady is probably the biggest steal in the history of the NFL. But looking back at his college career, game film, stats, physical traits, combine numbers - there was absolutely nothing at the time that hinted that Brady could be anything special. Nobody (the Patriots included) saw the guy as anything higher than a mid-late round pick. There was something inside Brady that could not be seen or measured by scouts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Thanks bandit, interesting read. I liked the mention of the position coaches and their influence. Once had a certain coach ask us to splice together nothing but the dropbacks of a particular QB back in the 70s. Had to have been over 500 of them and he wanted them in order. So we grouped all the 3 step, 5 step, and 7 step separately. Plus rollouts. Took several days. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebandit27 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 Thanks bandit, interesting read. I liked the mention of the position coaches and their influence. Once had a certain coach ask us to splice together nothing but the dropbacks of a particular QB back in the 70s. Had to have been over 500 of them and he wanted them in order. So we grouped all the 3 step, 5 step, and 7 step separately. Plus rollouts. Took several days. GO BILLS!!! Yep...have to be honest in that as I read I laughed--I harkened back to our conversation about grading scales a few years back. If I recall accurately, I mentioned that my understanding was that grading of prospects was done on a 1.0-8.0 scale, while you said all of your experience was on a 1.0-9.0 scale. Good stuff. I also find it interesting that there are so many sub-sets of what the average fan might refer to as an "elite" talent. For example, fans might see a talented player and consider him elite, when it a GM's eye, he's merely in the top 30-40% of draftable players according to the scale. This was the part that stood out to me. People love to talk about "busts" and "steals" - and many fans like to pretend drafting is just a roll of the dice. The truth is, evaluating a player's overall talent isn't that tough. It's trying to predict which guys will be hardest workers at the next level, and which guys will try coasting. Tom Brady is probably the biggest steal in the history of the NFL. But looking back at his college career, game film, stats, physical traits, combine numbers - there was absolutely nothing at the time that hinted that Brady could be anything special. Nobody (the Patriots included) saw the guy as anything higher than a mid-late round pick. There was something inside Brady that could not be seen or measured by scouts. Great, great point. Being able to gauge "heart" may be the one thing that separates a great draft from a complete mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Turk Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Yep...have to be honest in that as I read I laughed--I harkened back to our conversation about grading scales a few years back. If I recall accurately, I mentioned that my understanding was that grading of prospects was done on a 1.0-8.0 scale, while you said all of your experience was on a 1.0-9.0 scale. Good stuff. I also find it interesting that there are so many sub-sets of what the average fan might refer to as an "elite" talent. For example, fans might see a talented player and consider him elite, when it a GM's eye, he's merely in the top 30-40% of draftable players according to the scale. Great, great point. Being able to gauge "heart" may be the one thing that separates a great draft from a complete mess. The interesting thing we will never know is how being drafted in the 6th round drove him to "prove" people wrong versus if he had been taken in the first round. Would he have had the same drive, desire to prove people wrong, and work ethic? Or would he have just thought he was the man? I'm leaning towards him being the same, but you never know how much those slights drive people... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mannc Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 (edited) To me, the interesting thing is how sophisticated and complex the process is. There is an enormous amount of information out there and it is very hard to correctly evaluate it and organize it in a coherent, reliable way. It made me realize the importance of continuity within an organization. A team with a consistent, year-to-year methodology has a huge andvantage over teams that change out their coaching and front office staffs every couple years, it seems to me. Edited March 9, 2014 by mannc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2o Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Good read, thanks for posting my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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