Wolfley: Of Scouts and Suits
Ron Wolfley
Cardinals Analyst
Draft-Day is closing on us, my friends. NFL teams are built on this day. Understand this truth and believe it: all great teams are built on the foundation of the draft. Free-agency is good for a “quick-fix” but pales in comparison to the day of reckoning, where Commissioners parade and Kiper prattles.
Many NFL types will tell you free-agency has not been the panacea they believed it to be. For every Edgerrin James signing, a true “no-brainer,” the Fields of Sunday are littered with high-priced, overpaid, free-agent bombs, exploding like little Hindenburgs, ruining the best laid plans of scouts and suits. Many decision-makers have been scorched by the flames for their error in judgment, returning to shattered expectations, bloated cap-numbers and empty offices.
The NFL draft does not only determine the future success of student-athletes, teams and fans, but shapes the careers of the best minds in football. Many reputations are lost, and found, based on predictions involving twenty-two-year-old kids known more (on campus) for chugging a “forty” than running a forty. The fact of the matter is this: you just don’t know for certain whether Little Johnny Combine will be the player he was in college.
If the NFL is filled with high-priced, overpaid, free-agent bombs, exploding like little Hindenburgs, it’s overflowing with high-priced, overpaid, draft choices, imploding like large, Russian submarines. These implosions come in all shapes, sizes and scenarios. Injury, attitude, influence, character, work ethic, insecurity and posses all contribute to the demise of promising draft-picks. What works for one young player destroys the other. What confounds the next Ryan Leaf creates the next Peyton Manning. Follow the bouncing ball, my friends, where it stops nobody knows. And I mean nobody.
And this is the problem for pro-personnel people in the National Football League: drafting first-round players is a high-stakes game of Texas Hold ‘Em. If one could possibly know, if one could predict with certainty the type of pro that kid from Upper Iowa State University was going to be, he’d be the richest man in the Western Hemisphere. For every Larry Fitzgerald there is an Edmund Fitzgerald: draft picks disappearing from NFL radar-screens like cargo ships on “Gitche Gumee” (my apologies to Gordon Lightfoot).
Too many times, a General Manager, Head Coach, or Chief Scout is left to ponder the imponderable…alone. Although they have resources to fall back on – mounds of scouting reports, stacks of DVD’s and more opinions than faces in the room – somebody has got to make a decision, somebody has got to go-on-record as the guy who drafted Tommy Millionaire out of IoU.
The buck may have stopped on Harry Truman’s desk, but the bucks (i.e. millions) start on the owner’s – trying to fit a seven-digit number in the debit column of his checkbook. Most owners do not respond well to first-round flops. Watching your “Golden Boy” stumble his way through a game he dominated in college makes owners scratch a rash and pick scabs, especially after the kid held out of camp, demanded a suite for his family, negotiated a three-million dollar bonus for attending team functions and calls you, the owner, by your first-name! If the prospect pans out, the owner won’t care if the kid calls him by a nickname; if he flips and flops, struggling for air like a grounded Crappie, somebody better explain why the “big-one” got away or suffer the wrath of the check-writing owner. “He calls me ‘Jimmy,’ for Pete’s sake…in the hallway!”
Although the draft is a momentous day for most NFL franchises, fans inevitably get their hearts broken. No matter who gets drafted, especially in the first-round, general managers can’t please everybody all of the time. In fact, they can’t please some people most of the time, nor can they please most people some of the time. It’s like trying to explain the difference between Mostly Sunny and Partly Cloudy: impossible.
Fans have their favorites and view the draft as a speeding, silver-bullet, capable of solving their team’s problems in a single bound. And this is not impossible, my friends; but most teams will need at least two, probably three, good drafts to build a winner. The average rookie takes time to develop, needing a few seasons before reaching their full potential. Many times, front-office people won’t know if a kid is a flop until year three or four. This is not an all-of-the-time-thing, of course, there are rookies who start immediately, play well and have highly productive seasons.
By the way, in regard to the draft, one of the inherent problems with free-agency forces NFL teams to play rookies sooner than they did in the past – even if they’re not ready. In the old days, rookies were brought along slowly because teams knew the kid was going to be with them until they no longer desired his services. Today, teams need to find out within four-years if the kid is a player – signing him to a long-term deal if they think he is, allowing him to become a free-agent if they think he isn’t. And so it goes…
But what of the prospects themselves? What pressures do they face on Draft-Day?
In general, the pressure on draft-picks is monolithic; there’s lots of money at stake based on where you get drafted – especially for the first thirty-two! After the top-ten, the money drops off, exponentially, for the rest of the round. From the second-round on down, players are pretty much “slotted” by draft position, receiving a slight raise over the kid in that slot last year. The pressure is great for a young man hoping to take care of his family or impress that sorority-sister from Delta Delta Delta.
The pressure can be great for other reasons, as well. Where you’re drafted not only affects the compensation you’ll receive, it also calculates the “grace-period” you’ll enjoy when you show up for training camp. The first-four picks of any draft are fairly safe, especially in the era of free-agency (players leaving) and practice-squads (players hoping to stay, thinking they’ll go). Front-office decision-makers react poorly to high draft-picks being cut; it’s a direct reflection on them and their scouting department, which takes us back to owners scratching and picking – wondering why third and fourth-round picks are turning in playbooks.
After the third or fourth-round, rookies are on-the-clock. Their grace-period is recalculated on a daily basis: have a good one-on-one period and your playbook is safe, fumble the ball three-times in Team-period and you might want to eat your Cheerios with your head-on-a-swivel. The Turk won’t be far behind. He never is…
The best day of the off-season is almost here, my friends. Breakout your mock-draft, clear the room and get ready to brick the television! But remember this - between screaming at Mel Kiper Jr, begging him to stop – careers are not always built during the season. Many people have much more at stake than you do. If your mock-draft is wrong nobody cares or remembers; but to those that “make-the-call” on Draft-Day, and to those that might be drafted, careers are at stake, futures are discerned and gurus are born.
When you see the Commissioner at the podium announcing your team’s first-round-pick, remember, somebody had to stand up in the War Room and say, “I appreciate all of your input. This has been a very tough decision for all of us. But we’re down to thirty-seconds on the clock. So, we’re taking Quentin Gonna-Have-A-Date-For-The-Rest-Of-His-Life.”
So let it be said.
So let it be written.
So let it be done.
Ron Wolfley
Cardinals Analyst
You must be registered for see images
Draft-Day is closing on us, my friends. NFL teams are built on this day. Understand this truth and believe it: all great teams are built on the foundation of the draft. Free-agency is good for a “quick-fix” but pales in comparison to the day of reckoning, where Commissioners parade and Kiper prattles.
Many NFL types will tell you free-agency has not been the panacea they believed it to be. For every Edgerrin James signing, a true “no-brainer,” the Fields of Sunday are littered with high-priced, overpaid, free-agent bombs, exploding like little Hindenburgs, ruining the best laid plans of scouts and suits. Many decision-makers have been scorched by the flames for their error in judgment, returning to shattered expectations, bloated cap-numbers and empty offices.
The NFL draft does not only determine the future success of student-athletes, teams and fans, but shapes the careers of the best minds in football. Many reputations are lost, and found, based on predictions involving twenty-two-year-old kids known more (on campus) for chugging a “forty” than running a forty. The fact of the matter is this: you just don’t know for certain whether Little Johnny Combine will be the player he was in college.
If the NFL is filled with high-priced, overpaid, free-agent bombs, exploding like little Hindenburgs, it’s overflowing with high-priced, overpaid, draft choices, imploding like large, Russian submarines. These implosions come in all shapes, sizes and scenarios. Injury, attitude, influence, character, work ethic, insecurity and posses all contribute to the demise of promising draft-picks. What works for one young player destroys the other. What confounds the next Ryan Leaf creates the next Peyton Manning. Follow the bouncing ball, my friends, where it stops nobody knows. And I mean nobody.
And this is the problem for pro-personnel people in the National Football League: drafting first-round players is a high-stakes game of Texas Hold ‘Em. If one could possibly know, if one could predict with certainty the type of pro that kid from Upper Iowa State University was going to be, he’d be the richest man in the Western Hemisphere. For every Larry Fitzgerald there is an Edmund Fitzgerald: draft picks disappearing from NFL radar-screens like cargo ships on “Gitche Gumee” (my apologies to Gordon Lightfoot).
Too many times, a General Manager, Head Coach, or Chief Scout is left to ponder the imponderable…alone. Although they have resources to fall back on – mounds of scouting reports, stacks of DVD’s and more opinions than faces in the room – somebody has got to make a decision, somebody has got to go-on-record as the guy who drafted Tommy Millionaire out of IoU.
The buck may have stopped on Harry Truman’s desk, but the bucks (i.e. millions) start on the owner’s – trying to fit a seven-digit number in the debit column of his checkbook. Most owners do not respond well to first-round flops. Watching your “Golden Boy” stumble his way through a game he dominated in college makes owners scratch a rash and pick scabs, especially after the kid held out of camp, demanded a suite for his family, negotiated a three-million dollar bonus for attending team functions and calls you, the owner, by your first-name! If the prospect pans out, the owner won’t care if the kid calls him by a nickname; if he flips and flops, struggling for air like a grounded Crappie, somebody better explain why the “big-one” got away or suffer the wrath of the check-writing owner. “He calls me ‘Jimmy,’ for Pete’s sake…in the hallway!”
Although the draft is a momentous day for most NFL franchises, fans inevitably get their hearts broken. No matter who gets drafted, especially in the first-round, general managers can’t please everybody all of the time. In fact, they can’t please some people most of the time, nor can they please most people some of the time. It’s like trying to explain the difference between Mostly Sunny and Partly Cloudy: impossible.
Fans have their favorites and view the draft as a speeding, silver-bullet, capable of solving their team’s problems in a single bound. And this is not impossible, my friends; but most teams will need at least two, probably three, good drafts to build a winner. The average rookie takes time to develop, needing a few seasons before reaching their full potential. Many times, front-office people won’t know if a kid is a flop until year three or four. This is not an all-of-the-time-thing, of course, there are rookies who start immediately, play well and have highly productive seasons.
By the way, in regard to the draft, one of the inherent problems with free-agency forces NFL teams to play rookies sooner than they did in the past – even if they’re not ready. In the old days, rookies were brought along slowly because teams knew the kid was going to be with them until they no longer desired his services. Today, teams need to find out within four-years if the kid is a player – signing him to a long-term deal if they think he is, allowing him to become a free-agent if they think he isn’t. And so it goes…
But what of the prospects themselves? What pressures do they face on Draft-Day?
In general, the pressure on draft-picks is monolithic; there’s lots of money at stake based on where you get drafted – especially for the first thirty-two! After the top-ten, the money drops off, exponentially, for the rest of the round. From the second-round on down, players are pretty much “slotted” by draft position, receiving a slight raise over the kid in that slot last year. The pressure is great for a young man hoping to take care of his family or impress that sorority-sister from Delta Delta Delta.
The pressure can be great for other reasons, as well. Where you’re drafted not only affects the compensation you’ll receive, it also calculates the “grace-period” you’ll enjoy when you show up for training camp. The first-four picks of any draft are fairly safe, especially in the era of free-agency (players leaving) and practice-squads (players hoping to stay, thinking they’ll go). Front-office decision-makers react poorly to high draft-picks being cut; it’s a direct reflection on them and their scouting department, which takes us back to owners scratching and picking – wondering why third and fourth-round picks are turning in playbooks.
After the third or fourth-round, rookies are on-the-clock. Their grace-period is recalculated on a daily basis: have a good one-on-one period and your playbook is safe, fumble the ball three-times in Team-period and you might want to eat your Cheerios with your head-on-a-swivel. The Turk won’t be far behind. He never is…
The best day of the off-season is almost here, my friends. Breakout your mock-draft, clear the room and get ready to brick the television! But remember this - between screaming at Mel Kiper Jr, begging him to stop – careers are not always built during the season. Many people have much more at stake than you do. If your mock-draft is wrong nobody cares or remembers; but to those that “make-the-call” on Draft-Day, and to those that might be drafted, careers are at stake, futures are discerned and gurus are born.
When you see the Commissioner at the podium announcing your team’s first-round-pick, remember, somebody had to stand up in the War Room and say, “I appreciate all of your input. This has been a very tough decision for all of us. But we’re down to thirty-seconds on the clock. So, we’re taking Quentin Gonna-Have-A-Date-For-The-Rest-Of-His-Life.”
So let it be said.
So let it be written.
So let it be done.
