Anatomy of a draft: Cards GM Keim breaks down highly regarded haul

[Azlen]

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/c...ards-gm-keim-breaks-down-highly-regarded-haul

Anatomy of a draft: Cards GM Keim breaks down highly regarded haul

If you haven't heard of Steve Keim, Arizona's rookie general manager, please stand by. You will.Keim and the Cardinals just completed a draft with so many bull's-eyes they were applauded by a national media that usually reserves its attention for what Arizona can't do instead of what it just did.

And what it just did was nail last weekend's draft with Keim finding value everywhere. He struck early, landing the top guard in the draft, then worked his way down the board -- unafraid to gamble along the way.

When he was finished, he had the Cardinals at or near the top of virtually every post-draft scoreboard.

"If you were to tell me before the draft that we would be able to acquire those exact guys at those exact positions in the draft," said Keim, "I would've said, 'No way' -- particularly for about half of them.

"But for it to fall that way, well, sometimes it's your scouting system, with scouts doing a great job lining them up, and sometimes it comes down to being in the right place at the right time. It really did work out well for us, and I couldn't be happier."

I understand. What I don't is ... how did he do it? So I asked, and Keim delivered again, this time walking me through a round-by-round backstory to each pick.


Round 1
With the seventh choice, the Cardinals took UNC guard Jonathan Cooper,...... REST OF ARTICLE AT LINK AT TOP OF PAGE.

 

[JeffGollin]

Mods - This interview is so good it deserves Sticky status.

 

[52brandon]

Mods - This interview is so good it deserves Sticky status.

agreed. I loved the draft. And especially love that he sat down and explained the entire thing. He really seems like he knows what he's doing, and is doing it incredibly well... in only his 1st season as GM

 

[Dayman]

Excellent find. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Capital Card]

It's a good write-up, at first I thought it was Prisco, but to have it come from Clark Judge, I really liked it.

Not knowing much about him, I spent last night watching video of Stepfan Taylor. I'm pumped, and am really hopeful we're able to put together a decent running game this year.

Also, I think we're going to see the "spotted-owl" play of the Cardinals playbook really come to life... the screen-pass. I don't think I can count on one hand the number of successful screen plays we've run over the last decade.

Sure we still have some holes that aren't likely to get filled this year, and I think we may end up 1-5 in division games, but I am really starting to think we're heading in the right direction.

Go Cards!!!

 

[Arizona's Finest]

Great Read!

 

[Goldfield]

What a great read.... I feel like I am in an alternate football universe. The way Keim has been doing things around here is makeing this suffering cardinal fan VERY excited.

 

[Mitch]

When have we ever heard a more informative and cogent in-depth explanation of the picks? Awesome read!

 

[MadCardDisease]

Mods - This interview is so good it deserves Sticky status.

I agree. Will stick it for a day or two.

 

[Darkside]

Awesome, thanks for sharing this.

 

[Sleepy]

Fantastic read, thank you for posting this.

 

[BullheadCardFan]

"When we talked about 'Coop,' there were a lot of reports that compared him to Alan Faneca or Randall McDaniel, and we had him rated higher (than guard Chance Warmack) because, schematically, he was a better fit. With as much as we pull our guards and have them play in space in the screen and run games, we felt he was a natural for what we ask our guards to do. To me, when you have the ability to draft a guy you think is a Pro Bowl-caliber player, how high is too high? He was a great pick for us at seven."

Interesting.

 

[az jam]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting and informative article. What a difference from Graves.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

If you missed the link on the side where Prisco rates all the drafts, he gives the Cards an "A"

 

[Cardiac]

Great article, thanks for posting it.

My take away is that SK does set the 120 board with need factored into it, how heavily is the debating point.

Keim does keep saying:
"We really do stick with a best-player-available model.

Then he adds:

"But to a certain extent, we factor in the type of impact that player will have on our roster."

The question is how much need is used in setting the board. If SK would have truly set the board by pure BPA then Austin would have been the pick (to the delight of Mitch & Red Desert). That would have given us a glut and excess at WR and leave the gaping hole at OG/Oline.

I'm not complaining or even stating that this is the wrong approach, just wondering if the weighting of BPA based on need is done correctly.

We should expect every draftee to make the team this year (I'm okay with PS) and most should contribute, get playing time. If not then either the board wasn't set properly or SK & company aren't good enough at evaluating talent.

I think SK will clear these hurdles and the draft was what we are all patting ourselves on the back for at this time.

 

[Azlen]

You absolutely have to balance need and BPA, but it's not necessarily one vs the other. If you have two players and you score them about the same and one is a position of need and the other isn't then you probably are going to take the position of need first.
I still think that tiering has a lot to do with it. If there are only players that you have in your sixth tier left on the board then take the one that is in a position of need. If there is a fourth or fifth tier player on the board that isn't a position of need, you should still grab them before you would get a sixth tier player. I think most teams in the league are going to do something like that, what probably varies is how much weight they put on each position.

 

[Totally_Red]

There are two ways to look at this draft.

One, the Cardinals got several good prospects including a couple of day one starters.

Two, Steve Keim has no clue about pass rushers.

I'm gonna hold my fire on point two until I see if SK or the rest of the league is right on Alex Okeafor. At the very least he seems like an upgrade on O'Brien Schofield and Quentin Groves with the size and history to be better against the run than those two were last year. If the new coaching staff had input into the selection and can coach him into a solid defender, he's a 4th round bargain IMO.

 

[Chopper0080]

There are two ways to look at this draft.

One, the Cardinals got several good prospects including a couple of day one starters.

Two, Steve Keim has no clue about pass rushers.

I'm gonna hold my fire on point two until I see if SK or the rest of the league is right on Alex Okeafor. At the very least he seems like an upgrade on O'Brien Schofield and Quentin Groves with the size and history to be better against the run than those two were last year. If the new coaching staff had input into the selection and can coach him into a solid defender, he's a 4th round bargain IMO.

I am going to hold off on that assertion for now, but the track record on players they have drafted hasn't been great and they have passed on a ton of potential top edge rushers early in the draft over the past 3 drafts. Sam Acho is a good LB, but he is not a great rush threat. It is tough to state that Keim has had issues because, while he was part of the draft team, he wasn't the guy pulling the trigger until this year.

The one claim that I will make is that Keim and the Cardinals have not made OLB a priority over the years that it probably needs to be similar to how we have addressed the OL position over the past several years (before the last two obviously). Next offseason should be pretty telling as our overall needs should be less and there should be more of a focus on QB, OLB, OT, DE, CB, & S.

 

[Chopper0080]

A couple thoughts on this article.

1-I liked the Cardinals draft for the most part. I would have preferred another rush OLB in the 2nd over Minter or Arthur Brown, who I thought was a better LB in general though not as big. That being said, Minter was not a terrible pick. I also would have preferred an alternative player to Ellington, but at that point of the draft, if you can find a guy who you think will stick on your roster, it is a good pick.

2-I liked the explanation that Keim gave. I liked how he determined where good spots were to trade back, acquire more picks, and that he made those deals.

3-This all being said, this is a fluff piece. Teams build their boards with an innate bias towards players who fill needs. Staying true to your board does not mean that your board was not flawed in the first place by being skewed too much towards filling immediate needs. This is why free agency is key for teams to put themselves in the best position possible to avoid having to draft to fill specifc positions. The less specific needs you have, the more options of players you can draft at each given spot which leads to a higher chance of success.

4-Finally, again, this is a fluff piece. What did anyone expect Keim to say? That they took lower ranked players and reached for players that filled needs? Of course not, that would have the media and fans in a frenzy, and would probably get him fired. I liked the insight and access that the article provided, but in terms of the overall quality of the draft, we will see how it pans out.

 

[Totally_Red]

I am going to hold off on that assertion for now, but the track record on players they have drafted hasn't been great and they have passed on a ton of potential top edge rushers early in the draft over the past 3 drafts. Sam Acho is a good LB, but he is not a great rush threat. It is tough to state that Keim has had issues because, while he was part of the draft team, he wasn't the guy pulling the trigger until this year.

The one claim that I will make is that Keim and the Cardinals have not made OLB a priority over the years that it probably needs to be similar to how we have addressed the OL position over the past several years (before the last two obviously). Next offseason should be pretty telling as our overall needs should be less and there should be more of a focus on QB, OLB, OT, DE, CB, & S.

No argument there! During the Whisenhunt regime, they wanted veterans for the offensive line and rush linebacker. Whis & Graves swung and missed on both Travis Laboy and Joey Porter IMO. They did it again last year, getting a new toy for Whis' offense instead of addressing offensive line or pass rusher in the first round. At least the new regime did address offensive line this draft.

 

[Azlen]

It's way too early to make any sort of claims regarding Keim and rush LBers. This was his first year in charge. There is no way for us to know where he had players ranked or who he wanted to draft in previous years. There were players he might have wanted that he was overruled on. We can only judge him by the drafts that he is in charge of and so far there has been only one of them and that not enough evidence to state that he is not great at drafting rush LBers.

 

[dylanbw]

When have we ever heard a more informative and cogent in-depth explanation of the picks? Awesome read!

Yeah, this is bizarro world....but I love it.

Keim's perspective on Honey Badger is very fair. The team will put him in the best possible position to succeed; at that point it's on him. Reasonable risk with pick #69.

Okafor is a real key piece in this Draft in that we desperately need him to create a pass rush from OLB. As long as your 1st round pick is not a complete bust, the Draft is often "won" or "lost" with middle round picks like Okafor.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

The question is how much need is used in setting the board. If SK would have truly set the board by pure BPA then Austin would have been the pick (to the delight of Mitch & Red Desert). That would have given us a glut and excess at WR and leave the gaping hole at OG/Oline.

That assumes he had Austin in the top 5 like he said Cooper was. I haven't seen any indications they graded Austin that high. Link?

 

[GuernseyCard]

A couple thoughts on this article.

1-I liked the Cardinals draft for the most part. I would have preferred another rush OLB in the 2nd over Minter or Arthur Brown, who I thought was a better LB in general though not as big. That being said, Minter was not a terrible pick. I also would have preferred an alternative player to Ellington, but at that point of the draft, if you can find a guy who you think will stick on your roster, it is a good pick.

2-I liked the explanation that Keim gave. I liked how he determined where good spots were to trade back, acquire more picks, and that he made those deals.

3-This all being said, this is a fluff piece. Teams build their boards with an innate bias towards players who fill needs. Staying true to your board does not mean that your board was not flawed in the first place by being skewed too much towards filling immediate needs. This is why free agency is key for teams to put themselves in the best position possible to avoid having to draft to fill specifc positions. The less specific needs you have, the more options of players you can draft at each given spot which leads to a higher chance of success.

4-Finally, again, this is a fluff piece. What did anyone expect Keim to say? That they took lower ranked players and reached for players that filled needs? Of course not, that would have the media and fans in a frenzy, and would probably get him fired. I liked the insight and access that the article provided, but in terms of the overall quality of the draft, we will see how it pans out.

Re: point #4 - the guy who could fire him for the lies outlined was in the room throughout the draft and seems quite content with Keim's work.

 

[Darkside]

For me, it's not so much what Keim said--it's that he said it at all. It's a treat for fans. We're all starving for information, even just a small nugget, so we can come back here and dissect it. Obviously they're going to miss on some, hit on some, but what I took away from it was the process--they trusted it and didn't give in to temptation. How they grade guys is totally separate from the draft itself. All those grades and all the evaluation took place before the draft. The draft itself was about the processes they had in place and how steady they could remain in the face of an evolving board. As far as how they grade guys, I think we'll have a much clearer picture next year when they've all been together for a year. They didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this draft, and considering that, I think the draft itself was a success.