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Tag Archives: NFL draft

Three Reasons Why This Is A Horrible Time to be NFL Draft-Eligible

20 Friday Mar 2020

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NFL draft

If you’ve followed me on Twitter or read our content at Inside the League, you know I’ve been painting this coronavirus situation as especially dour for late-rounders. For those of you who don’t fully understand, let me explain myself.

Scouts are not going to have the access they usually have: One of the big benefits of pro days is that NFL teams gather reliable contact and agent information for literally thousands of players they might consider as undrafted free agents. The game plan to to fix this, as I wrote about here, is to call the colleges and ask them. This is a problem, however, because (a) a lot of NFL liaisons aren’t in the office these days and (b) most of them couldn’t tell you who represents their draft prospects. In all candor, most don’t seem to care and/or have other things they’d rather focus on. I can see lots of otherwise capable players falling through the cracks. But that’s not all the bad news.

Closing gyms is gonna have consequences: What if you were an agent? You spent around $10,000 per player to get him ready for his pro day, then just as he’s ready to go, half of the workouts are wiped out. Going on a three-mile run around the neighborhood does nothing to keep your starts crisp and your jumps explosive. If pro days do return, they won’t be back for at least two weeks. By then, some players won’t have trained for around a month. It’s almost like the money is down the drain.

No rookie mini-camps equals no tryout opportunities: Remember when Pete Carroll tried to pass on the goal line instead of giving it to Marshawn? The guy who swooped in for the pick, Malcolm Butler, was an ex-tryout player. In fact, we’ve told his story in this space. Dozens of players that go on to become reliable special-teamers, and sometimes even starters, began as guys who went to camp without a contract. Here are a few other names of ex-tryout players. Unless things change drastically (and quickly), rookie mini-camps will be a casualty of the coronavirus. If you’re a person who reads this space regularly, you know how that impacts the hopes of hundreds of NFL hopefuls this spring.

In the grand scheme of things, this is probably nothing, I know. But we don’t write about the grand scheme of things here at Inside the League. We focus on the business of the game, and there’s just no way to candycoat the obstacles so many players will face this year.

Read more about the strangest NFL draft season ever in this week’s Friday Wrap, which comes out at 6:30 p.m. CT. You can register for it here.

 

 

Who Did The Best In The ’18 NFL Draft? Here Are Five Candidates

02 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by itlneil in ITL, Scouts

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

Last year, we asked the question, why doesn’t anyone reward the team with the best NFL draft class? When we couldn’t come up with an answer, we decided to step up and do it ourselves. After holding a vote with only current and former NFL scouts voting, we presented the New Orleans Saints with the first-ever ITL Best NFL Draft Class Award for 2017 at our annual combine seminar.

We’ll do it again in February at our 10th annual seminar. But who will voters choose? It’s still too early to tell, but since we’re at midseason, it’s time to take a look at the possible finalists for the award. Here’s who we’re considering with half the season left to go, in no particular order.

  • Browns: It’s been an up-and-down season for the top pick in the draft, but QB Baker Mayfield deserves the benefit of the doubt so far. At worst, he seems to give Cleveland a passer the team can build around. Meanwhile, DC Denzel Ward looks like a keeper, as well, and we’ll know more about OH Nick Chubb by the end of the season as the team shipped out OH Carlos Hyde a week and a half ago. WO Antonio Callaway has provided glimpses of ability, too, as has OB Genard Avery.  Right now, the Browns look like the early leaders for best draft.
  • Colts: First-round OG Quenton Nelson has been solid, but the real find so far has been OB Darius Leonard, a true difference-maker the Colts found in the second round out of South Carolina State. The team also found a starter at right tackle, Braden Smith, one pick later, and fourth-round OH Nyheim Hines has been a threat as a rusher and a receiver.
  • Giants: Running back Saquon Barkley has been as-advertised, an undeniable talent and the leader in the Offensive Rookie of the Year race. Also, DT B.J. Hill looks like a building block, or at least part of the solution on defense. As for the rest of the team’s draft class, the grade has to be ‘incomplete.’ Guard Will Hernandez is learning on the job for a weak offensive line but there’s hope he’ll come away from the season as a bright spot. We may find out sooner rather than later what the team has in QB Kyle Lauletta, though there’s plenty of uncertainty surrounding DT R.J. McIntosh.
  • Broncos: Denver struck it rich twice, once in the first round with DE Bradley Chubb and once after the draft, when it landed UDFA OH Phillip Lindsay. We could see a lot more of WO Courtland Sutton in the second half with fellow receiver Demaryius Thomas now in Houston, so their draft could look even better in the second half.
  • Jets: So far, QB Sam Darnold has had his problems, but he’s the starter, no questions asked, so presuming he stays healthy, he’s got a chance to learn from his mistakes and make the Jets’ draft class look really good. In non-franchise QB news, the Jets also got a starter on the DL in the third round (DT Nate Shepherd) and fourth-round TE Chris Herndon is tied for the team lead in receiving TDs with three.

There are several other teams that could edge their way into the top five, and we’ll look at five more of them today in the Friday Wrap.

Not registered for it? Why not? It’s free, it comes out at 7:30 p.m. ET every week, and if you’re into the football business, we promise you’ll find it to be a good read. Register here, and check out last week’s edition here.

NFL Draft Analysis: Is It Mostly Good or Bad to Skip Your Senior Year?

12 Friday Oct 2018

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

At Inside the League, we’re always interested in looking at the draft in ways others don’t. With half the college season wrapping up after this weekend, this week, we thought we’d look at the true juniors, redshirt juniors and redshirt sophomores that might be thinking of passing up their respective seasons.

We hear a lot about the poor decisions so many players make in leaving early, and how the number of early entries is inclining steadily. The NFL puts a lot of resources into educating players on their pro chances, yet still, the perception is that countless players are throwing away their college careers to chase wild dreams, often egged on by unscrupulous agents.

Based on our look at the numbers, that perception doesn’t match reality. Do players who leave early blow their chances of getting to the league? For the most part, no. Consider.

  • About one in seven players who leave early (15.5 percent) won’t make a 53-man roster or practice squad at all. Looking at those numbers as half-full, rather than half-empty, just over 84 percent will make an NFL team, at least for a little while.
  • Numbers aren’t available on what percentage, on average, doesn’t even make it to an NFL camp, but I’d estimate it’s about half of that. Again, turning the numbers to half-full, I’d estimate that more than 90 percent of those leaving early at least make it into a camp.
  • Would another year in college have made any difference? It’s impossible to tell. What percentage of those players left school with eligibility remaining, but already had a degree? Those are also numbers we don’t have.
  • More on education and degree completion: it’s worth noting that most often, offensive linemen make it furthest in their coursework because they redshirt their first seasons. However, of the 87 players in the last five years who left early but never made it to the regular season, just six were offensive linemen.
  • More on the players that never made it to the regular season: 26 of 87 (about 30 percent) were from FCS-or-smaller schools, which statistically only make up about nine percent of the league anyway. If you’re leaving early for the NFL and you didn’t play FBS, it’s like having to notch a hole in one for the chance to make a half-court shot. The odds aren’t good.

At the end of the day, if you’re a player who feels he’s had a good season, is ready for the league, and has explored all his options and submitted his name for review with the NFL, I don’t think it’s a completely outrageous idea. After all, the NFL can be a very fickle organization, and your chances this time next year are not automatically as good as they are this year, especially when you figure in the chance of injury.

At the same time, before you make any decisions, we recommend you look at the hard numbers, which you can do here (with an ITL account, that is; sorry).

One question we’ve avoided entirely in this space is, what are the statistical chances a player who leaves early gets drafted? We take a long look at that in this week’s Friday Wrap, analyzing our statistical breakdown, which is presented here (sorry, it’s an ITL link again).

Make sure to check out our full look at early entries, where they wind up, and why in today’s Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

Who Drafted Best in 2017?

27 Saturday Jan 2018

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

If there’s one thing I think the sport has lacked, it’s an affinity group, a trade organization, a body for those in personnel. I’m not talking about some kind of fan-based organization, but a real society for people in the business akin to the Pro Football Writers of America, the Sports Lawyers Association or the AFCA.

I was discussing this on Wednesday at the Senior Bowl with a longtime friend, Shawn Zobel of Zobel Sports Consulting, and we decided we should do something about it. We’re working on ideas and trying to decide how to approach it. Along the way, we got to talking about what team had the best draft in 2017, and we came up with these five teams. I’ll list them alphabetically and try to state each team’s best case.

Bears: I think there was some thought the Bears might make big changes in their front office around this time of year going into the ’17 season, but you have to hand it to GM Ryan Pace. He had the courage to stand up to the naysayers and draft one-year wonder QB Mitch Trubisky, and based on one season, it looks like a great move.  But it wasn’t the only one. The Bears landed two big players in the fourth round in FS Eddie Jackson and OH/KR Tarik Cohen.

Jaguars: The Jags got instant starters out of their first-rounder (OH Leonard Fournette) and second-rounder (OT Cam Robinson), plus promising rotational pieces in the third round (DE D.J. Smoot) and fourth round (WO DeDe Westbrook). Oh, by the way, they went from 3-13 and last in the AFC South to the AFC Championship game this season.

Saints: Marshon Lattimore. Alvin Kamara. We maybe needn’t go on, but we will. The team also drafted starters OT Ryan Ramczyk and FS Marcus Williams, as well as key contributor DE Trey Hendrickson in turning a franchise that had gone 7-9 three straight seasons — with Drew Brees — into one answered prayer away from the NFC Championship Game. You could argue that the ’17 draft even saved the team from having to draft a starting QB in 2018.

Texans: It wouldn’t be a discussion of the draft if it didn’t involve some projection, right? Think about what happens if QB Deshaun Watson doesn’t go down after six starts. If the Texans only had that one pick, after rolling the dice to trade up, you could argue they had the best draft, especially if he continued his brilliance over a complete season. However, the team also hit on IB Zach Cunningham in the second round, as well as OH D’onta Foreman (another injury casualty) and several other picks. Houston’s won-loss record masks a tremendous draft class.

Vikings: If you read this blog regularly, you know that we hold Minnesota’s front office in pretty high regard, and the ’17 draft class was another good one, though, again, it requires projection. Would KC’s Kareem Hunt and Kamara have stolen all the rookie rusher glory if Dalvin Cook, whom the team got in the second round, doesn’t go down in Week 4? And that’s to say nothing of rookie OC Pat Elflein, who stepped right in and helped make the Vikes’ OL a strength throughout the season? They also drafted a starter at weak side LB, Ben Gedeon, in the fourth round.

Shawn and I will be putting these contenders to a vote with our friends in the scouting community as well as in college personnel departments across the land, and we’ll announce the results at the NFL combine in about a month.

In the meantime, who do you like? Who did we leave out? Let us know in the comments, hit me up on Twitter, and/or listen in today as Sirius XM Radio’s Orlando Alzugaray and I give our votes on Mad Dog Radio (channel 82) at 5:30 p.m. ET today. You can also vote in our poll.

 

 

A Brief History of NFL Draft Hype

28 Friday Apr 2017

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

This week, a tweet about the vapidness of NFL draft hype got me thinking about how we all spend January through April. Ironically, it came from a draft pundit. You might be surprised to learn that I find the NFL draft a little painful. Well, not the draft itself, but its coverage.

It’s troublesome to me that every year, for 4-5 months, football fandom buys into the incessant praise of players who haven’t even set foot on an NFL field yet. What’s truly irksome, however, is the parade of draft pundits who make pronouncements on players or teams with no accountability. How do people become famous by making a serious of statements that include ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if’ or ‘it’s possible that’ or ‘it’s likely that,’ etc.?  It got me thinking about how we got here.

Thirty years ago or so, a few teams started trying to bring scouting into the 20th century, so they agreed to get together and have players work out at a central location. It was around this time that ESPN, which didn’t have a lot of live sports coverage (outside of tractor pulls and Australian Rules Football), decided to broadcast the draft. They tried several people as pundits (Joel Buchsbaum was lousy on camera, while Sports Illustrated’s Paul Zimmerman got into an on-air fight with a fellow broadcaster) before settling on little-known Mel Kiper Jr. This was long before draft news was anything anyone cared about.

Brick by brick, the game of football grew in popularity, and the combine progressed as well. Then the Internet was invented, and soon, every fan could find someone with news, opinion, or both on the draft. Those fans could also express their own opinions, first through blogs and newsgroups, and then by Twitter and other social media platforms. These days, we have not one but two major networks (ESPN and the NFL Network) going pick by pick through the draft, and we have play-by-play dissection of practices at the major all-star games, as well as up-close coverage during the combine. I guess, to some degree, NFL draft coverage has been the perfect marriage of technology and the nation’s obsession with pro football, and that’s great. But something about the way it’s packaged and over-produced drives me crazy.

I know my aggravation with all of this puts me in the minority. I guess, at the end of the day, I don’t see this as entertainment, and don’t think it should be treated that way. You always read these stories about how ‘football is just a game’ and ‘when (some crazy illness or death) happens, it really puts football in perspective,’ but really, that’s not true.

For the fan, the NFL is just a game, a way to put aside the world and escape. But tell that to the player from a poor background trying to reset the course of his family’s life. Tell that to the scouts that have never done anything else in their professional lives, then get fired due to a GM change or belt-tightening. Tell that to the coaches who get their lives torn apart on social media because their teams didn’t win enough games to satisfy fans’ bloodlust.

There’s a lot of money in football, but that doesn’t mean everyone in it spends all their time rolling around in cash. In fact, most of them spend 10-12 hours working hard to keep their jobs, and the other half of the day worrying about what happens if they don’t. This game is fun, but it’s also deadly serious.

Do Teams Really Grade Draft Trades on Points?

09 Thursday Jun 2016

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

You get a lot of media narratives when it comes to the NFL draft. Some are true, some aren’t. One storyline that’s gotten a lot of traction is that Jimmy Johnson, during his time running the Cowboys in the 80s and 90s, he developed a value points system for every pick in the draft, and he used it to weigh the draft-day offers he’d get, as well as the offers he’d make.

One year, I was part of the draft broadcast team for a major radio network, and one of my counterparts was a guy who had spent a little time in an NFL front office and used it to market himself as a personnel guru. At one point, the host asked about the value points system, and I kind of brushed it off, explaining that teams wouldn’t lock themselves into something so one-dimensional. He overruled me, countering that all teams used it and it was a routine part of every team’s war room.

I’ve always wondered which one of us was right, so I asked several of my friends in scouting (seven, to be exact) about it. The responses I got fit into three categories.

  • “We don’t use it:” I only got this response from one team, but it’s one of the better franchises in the NFL. The scout said that, instead, the team compares the offer against similar previous offers and uses draft histories to evaluate each trade.
  • “We use it as part of our evaluation system:” One scout said his team uses 11 different charts to measure draft trades, and Johnson’s chart is one of them. One told me everyone uses it to some degree, and estimated that there are 3-4 other charts out there that teams use.
  • “We do our own charts:” One scout said his team uses its analytics people to develop its own value system for picks. Another scout said his team uses a chart that is very similar, but that his team does not use Johnson’s chart. Another scout said his team is always evaluating its charts and they change every year. Things can get pretty complicated: variables include the relative value of a position, which changes from year to year, the performances of players at differing places in the draft, etc. “It’s a very fluid chart,” one scout said, calling it “football’s version of the slide rule.”

In the end, I guess every team has its own way of doing things, but the idea of a chart, and assigning value to picks, is valid. I guess the main takeaway is that teams are always looking for ways to look at data and break the code for success.

The NFL’s Draft Gurus

25 Wednesday May 2016

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NFL draft, NFL Scouting

Next week is a big week for the 2017 draft. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. The week after Memorial Day is traditionally when BLESTO and National Football Scouting (NFS) introduce their subscribing teams to the next draft class.

If you read this blog, you probably already know what I’m talking about, but if not, here’s a quick primer. About two-thirds of NFL teams subscribe to one of two scouting services, NFS and BLESTO. BLESTO is the older of the services (and based in Jacksonville, Fla.), but National (based in Indianapolis) probably has a slightly better reputation among teams (and a few more subscribing teams). Both services command six-figure sums to provide teams with a detailed but preliminary look at the top rising seniors. Their lists usually number in the 800- to 1,000-player range, and players are given a grade (each service has its own proprietary grading system).

On one hand, these services give subscribing teams a big hand up on evaluation. Based on what these ‘combines’ tell teams, most scouting coordinators put together travel schedules for their scouts. Players with high scores achieve tremendous status going into their senior seasons, and automatically head to the top of the draft list, at least in the early stages of the season.

On the other hand, these services are far from infallible. Subscribing teams have to provide a scout to pitch in his services, and usually these scouts are either new to the business, quite young, or both. In fact, the combine scout role has become the intermediary step between scouting assistant and full-fledged road scout. Therefore, lots of the people putting these grades together are cutting their teeth in the business. In fact, a tremendous amount of their jobs is not a lot different from your garden variety draft fan — combing through hundreds of college rosters to find players that fit certain parameters, calling coaches and asking for recommendations, and even Googling to find top players in out-of-the-way conferences.

Next week will also serve as a kickoff for agents to start looking for these lists. Though they’re proprietary, and very hard to find, and far from perfect, these are seen as the best tool for kicking off recruiting. In fact, to some degree, NFS/BLESTO week kicks off recruiting for most agencies. Getting a copy of the list is almost seen as a measure of status for agents (especially young ones). When you’ve gotten your hands on one of the lists, it means you’ve arrived as an agent. You’ve got juice. You’re wired. You have connections.

The one caveat to the lists is that only seniors are evaluated. It’s one way the NFL has built detente with several schools that would rather not have their players’ heads filled with pro football dreams. As we’ve seen, especially the last few years, the truly elite players rarely make it to their senior seasons. One day soon, the combines will have to address this, or someone else will fill that market space. It’s just one more possible niche you can fill if you’re trying to figure out how to crack the league.

Anyway, as you maybe take a post-draft break from the gridiron and enjoy burgers and dogs by the pool this weekend, understand that NFL scouts are digging in and getting ready for what’s in store in about 11 months.

Guest Columnist: Take Value Pts With a Grain of Salt

26 Tuesday Apr 2016

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NFL draft, Troy Brown

Earlier this month, I had lunch with my former business partner, Troy, and posted here about it. He thinks a lot about the draft and closely follows the process as well as the prospects. For that reason, when he took issue with one of my posts last week, I asked him to develop his opinion so I could publish it here. He makes some great points.

I’ll turn it over to Troy.


So much is made of the NFL Draft value points chart created more than a quarter century ago by former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson. It’s natural this time of year — especially with the recent blockbusters involving a bundle of picks for the No. 1 and 2 overall selections.

While a fun exercise in theory, my argument is that the chart is completely irrelevant for teams without a franchise QB for this simple reason: The league, more than ever, is comprised of “haves” and “have-nots.” Those with a clear-cut, long-term guy under center will be in the mix each year. And those without? Their only chance is that stars align for their team in a one-off season.

Therefore, instead of looking at a complex points chart, the have-nots should be doing whatever’s necessary to put themselves in position to get their long-term solution at QB because, long term, the bundle of draft picks (and “points”) you give up are irrelevant.

Looking back at its origin, the points system was useful for Johnson at the time. He was gift-wrapped Troy Aikman and soon acquired a boatload of picks from Minnesota in the Herschel Walker deal. So it made sense to use metrics to gain valuable assets to surround the future Hall of Fame QB and a pretty barren roster. I would even argue that the point system can be valuable today for teams such as Green Bay and Indianapolis that are trying to build talent around their franchise QB.

However, the major flaw in a rigid point system is that all the slotted picks are not created equal. For example, under the point chart, the No. 1 overall pick is worth 3,000 points, with No. 2 being 2,600, No. 3 at 2,200, and so on.

Look at recent history. In 2011 and 2012, the first picks were Cam Newton and Andrew Luck. In 2013-2014, they were Eric Fisher and Jadeveon Clowney. Anyone think those picks should be looked at equally, as they are by the points chart?

Fisher, Clowney and other non-QB top picks are nice prospects, but they are not winning you games week-in, week-out. QBs like Luck and Newton can single-handedly win games and keep their respective teams in the playoff mix every year for decade. How can you put a point total on that?

For example, if prior to the 2012 draft, Cleveland, which picked No. 3, would have offered Indianapolis five No. 1 draft picks to move up just two spots, advocates of the value points chart would have jumped all over the deal. Those who follow the chart would argue that five No. 1 draft choices would far outweigh getting that single pick.

However, since a true franchise QB was involved, I would argue that giving up those picks would still be a great bargain for the Browns. With Luck as its franchise QB, the Browns would have almost certainly made a couple of playoffs appearances—or at least been in the mix each of the past four years. It could then focus on building around its young signal-caller with a clear direction for the next decade.

And the Colts, taking what the Browns offered, could have then selected (as the Browns actually did with its next five No. 1 picks) Trent Richardson, Barkevious Mingo, Justin Gilbert, Johnny Manziel and Danny Shelton. Guess what? If that had happened, four years later the Colts would still have no idea what direction it was going and no chance to compete each of the last four seasons … much like the Browns today.

Moving forward to what we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard so many ‘NFL insiders’ say “the Rams gave up way too much” or “the Eagles could wreck their franchise for years if this trade doesn’t work out.” It’s all complete hogwash.

Just take a look at the most recent ‘blockbuster’ trade from 2012, involving the Rams and Redskins. Washington essentially gave up the Nos. 6 and 39 overall picks in 2012, No. 22 in 2013 and No. 2 overall pick in 2014.

People said the Redskins “mortgaged their future” on the prospects of Robert Griffin III. Well, obviously, he didn’t work out in Washington, as four years later he’s in Cleveland. Yet, since the trade, the Redskins have won the NFC East twice in the past four seasons—once with RGIII and once with Kurt Cousins— yet remain a have-not in the bigger picture in terms of being a real Super Bowl threat. The Redskins are essentially in the same boat they were before the trade.

On the flip side, we heard so much about how the Rams gouged the Redskins and setting themselves up as real contenders because of the haul of picks in the deal. Yet, after it was all said and done, the players they took with the Redskins’ picks were DT Michael Brockers, DC Janoris Jenkins, OH Isaiah Pead, OG Rokevious Watkins, IB Alec Ogletree, WO Stedman Bailey, OH Zac Stacy and OT Greg Robinson. And exactly how many wins have those guys contributed to over the past four years? Very few. The Rams basically remain in the same position they were before the blockbuster. A have-not. Both teams are still searching for that guy.

So, let’s bring the discussion back to last week’s deal between the Browns and Eagles. Who is the likely winner and loser?

To me, at least Philadelphia has the potential to be the big winner. Why? Because it put itself in a position to get a potential franchise QB and be a “have” franchise for a decade. Conversely, the Browns might very well build up quite a talented roster but it will remain a “have-not” without that special guy taking snaps.

Who knows if Jared Goff or Carson Wentz will be the man for his respective team? But I’ll always applaud a team that doesn’t have a franchise QB trying everything in its power to acquire one.

In a nutshell, I’m not saying acquiring a bunch of picks cannot be valuable assets. What I am saying is that in today’s NFL, when a potential franchise QB is involved, a ‘bunch of guys’ does not equal ‘The Guy.’

WSW: You Just Never Know

03 Thursday Mar 2016

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Agents, NFL draft, Sean Kiernan

As I’ve discussed previously in this space, I was on a panel last month at the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. It was a fascinating time, to say the least, and a pleasure to hear some great minds talk about the business in a real, factual basis. So many times you wind up on a panel with people who think they know the business, but don’t. These folks did.

One of the stories that was told there I wanted to use for today’s Thursday edition of War Story Wednesday. The story is told by Sean Kiernan, a seasoned agent who’s based in the Los Angeles area. Though he’s with Select Sports Group now, the story he tells is from his time with Impact Sports, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla.

For what it’s worth, the five players he discussed below are taken from Impact’s draft class of Tennessee OG Arron Sears (2/35), Notre Dame DE Victor Abiamiri (2/57), Georgia DE Quentin Moses (3/65), California DC Daymeion Hughes (3/95), Oklahoma St. OG Corey Hilliard (6/209), Florida IB Brandon Siler (7/240). Apparently Sean didn’t recruit one of the players from this group.

“You look at it from a draft perspective, the best year we ever had as a company (at Impact Sports was in 2007. Erik and I were talking about it this morning. (All year) I was on the road between Atlanta and Phoenix, watching five guys, and I thought we had the best draft class ever. We ended up with two seconds, two thirds and a seventh, and I was at a company where we were consistently in the first round with at least one pick every year. None of those guys got second deals. None of them. One had concussion issues, was out of the league. One had a bad knee. Out of the league. One couldn’t run and played corner. Not a good thing. One, the top pick of the third round, got cut at the end of training camp. He was the highest guy to ever get cut in like four years, and he was the highest player on the BLESTO report and the third-highest player on the National report, eight months ago. And he got cut. Now, he survived four years in the league and he made it. We found the right place for him, but he never got a second deal. The seventh-round pick tore his Achilles going into his second deal. Five guys. And if you would have asked me, any year in my career, if I was to bet on any year of guys, that was the group of guys I would have bet on all day. All five of them, nothing. Then there’s guys I sign off of practice squad who get a four-year, $16 million deal. You just never know.”

I agree. This class looked like a lock going into the draft and even beyond, but it didn’t work out that way. If you get into this business, understand that it’s very fickle. There are no guarantees.

Relating the Draft and League Success

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

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NFL draft

If you read this blog regularly, you know we’ve spent some time studying the correlation between a team’s total draftees active in the league (on their own roster or otherwise) and its year-to-year success. With the season about two-thirds done, let’s review the totals and try to match draft success with won-loss records.

We’ll analyze the teams in the top third, the middle third, and the bottom third.

Top third: 49ers (59); Packers (57); Steelers (52); Ravens, Bengals and Eagles (50); Vikings and Seahawks (49); and Chiefs (48).

Analysis: The Seahawks and Packers (who share a draft methodology, by the way) are known throughout the league for finding solid players throughout the draft and gems in the latter rounds, and that has been reflected in both teams’ consistent play over the last decade. The big surprise is that the Niners lead the league in this category, suggesting that though the team may move on from head coach Jim Tomsula after the season, GM Trent Baalke and his staff should remain safe. For what that’s worth. Meanwhile, the Vikings have obviously been taking care of business on draft day, and the emergence of Paul Zimmer as head coach, plus the return of A.P., have allowed the team to put it all together.

Middle third: Cardinals, Cowboys, Broncos, Texans and Titans (47); Bills and Patriots (46); Dolphins (45); and Panthers, Browns, Jets, Raiders and Rams (44).

Analysis: I’ve spoken to teams that have decried the Patriots’ drafts, though the team remains a constant Super Bowl contender; this probably shows the huge impact a top-flight QB can make on a team (and why teams are constantly chasing prospects at the position). Similarly, Cam Newton (and Luke Kuechly) have taken the Panthers upon their backs despite the team’s lack of talent on offense.

Bottom third: Lions (43); Saints and Chargers (40); Falcons (39); Bears and Jaguars (38); Bucs (37); Colts (35); Redskins (33); and Giants (30).

Analysis: The Lions made a change at GM (and made the surprising admission that the team hadn’t worked hard enough in evaluation) already this season. The Bears and Redskins made a change at GM before this season, and the Bucs before the ’14 season. Meanwhile, the Falcons stripped personnel responsibilities from GM Thomas Dimitroff before this season. The Jags’ David Caldwell and Colts’ Tom Telesco are in Year 3, and Colts’ Ryan Grigson is in Year 4.  Saints GM Mickey Loomis and Giants GM Jerry Reese have both been at their posts for a comparable eternity. It will be interesting to see if any of these teams make changes at the end of the month.

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