NFL draft:
Scouts’ craft involves tricky mix of criteria
Projecting future success isn’t so easy.
Surrounded by news media on the second day in Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl in late January, Chicago Bears coach John Fox answered questions about several NFL hopefuls, including players on his North squad that week.
It wasn’t until Fox was asked about one player — Alabama defensive end Jonathan Allen, who’s widely projected to be taken by the Bears with the No. 3 overall pick in April’s NFL draft — that the veteran coach politely declined.
“For us as coaches, our scouts have been out all year long scouring the country watching many football games, watching a lot of college tape,” Fox said in late January. “So I’m not as wellversed and caught up. I will be by April, but at this point I shouldn’t answer that.”
The complicated art of scouting at the NFL level was again at the forefront as coaches, executives and scouts from all 32 teams descended on Indianapolis during the recent scouting combine to evaluate more than 330 prospective NFL players.
Given the subjective nature of scouting, the reality of the situation is player evaluations are more a numbers game than finding that one prospect who can turn around a franchise.
“The thing about scouting, it’s about batting average — you’re not going to get everyone right,” CBSSports.com’s draft analyst Dane Brugler said in January. “You’re going to miss a lot, and you learn from that. … There’s a lot of mistakes, a lot of misses, and you try to learn from that and become a better scout.”
And with more than 250 picks available in the draft, and a couple hundred additional players who get picked up as undrafted free agents, there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes and home runs.
That’s what makes a scout’s job so important at this time of year and why the duty of evaluating NFL prospects in college is all the more challenging, especially when there are so many different ways scouts ultimately come to their evaluations.
Often the prospects aren’t nearly as cut-and-dried as Allen, who won nearly every defensive player of the year award in the NCAA after a standout senior season with the Crimson Tide.
Take Allen’s teammate, O.J. Howard, whose natural talent and physical makeup (6-6, 251 pounds) check many of the boxes NFL scouts covet at tight end yet never had the on-field production at Alabama his clear skill set might indicate he’s capable of.
In four years with the Tide, Howard combined for 1,726 yards and seven total touchdowns — averaging 431.5 receiving yards and 28.5 catches per season, neither of which are particularly impressive figures.
Still, as most scouts will tell you, their job is to look beyond the numbers and try to evaluate a prospect’s potential to succeed at the next level, which is why Howard is among the most coveted players at any position.
“The golden rule of scouting is traits over production,” Brugler said. “If you have the athleticism and the framework, just the upside — things that you can’t coach — teams are going to take a chance on you.”
And specific traits an organization values over others tends to be team-specific, depending on what those making the final calls ultimately deem as most vital to a player’s success at the next level.
“I think every scout has his own philosophy,” said Marc Lillibridge, who has 20-plus years of experience as an NFL agent and scout, including with the Green Bay Packers (2000-05) and the Kansas City Chiefs (2005-06). “You have some of the old-school guys that still go by (the idea) that speed kills no matter what, and you have some of your newer guys that want smarter players that have (other intangibles).”
Those innate intangibles can be the most tricky to evaluate but can often separate an everyday NFL player from becoming an all-pro candidate.
Among the many examples for intangibles in this year’s draft is former Alabama linebacker Ryan Anderson, who was often overshadowed by the sometimes eyepopping play of teammates like Allen and fellow outside linebacker Tim Williams.
“He might not check all the boxes in terms of the freakish abilities, but he makes up for it with the toughness and the motor and just the aggressiveness,” Brugler said. “This is a guy that has that killer instinct, and he plays like it. That’s something that doesn’t go unnoticed by NFL teams, and they want guys like that on their roster.”
Of course, it helps when team executives are on the same page when it comes to scouting preferences, including with regard to particular size-speed standards at each position.
For instance, some teams prefer defensive backs that are at least 5-11 or taller, while others are less restrictive and simply look at overall ability.
Based on that size standard, some teams might shy away from talented Michigan defensive back/linebacker Jabrill Peppers — who measured out just below 5-11 last week — a concept that should be counterintuitive given Peppers’ All-America production with the Wolverines last season.
In a real-world example, Lillibridge remembers the Packers — then under coach Mike Sherman — having a lengthy discussion about undersized Purdue quarterback Drew Brees, who was taken by the San Diego Chargers with the first pick of the second round after concerns that his 6-0 height could be a detriment.
“He didn’t fit the criteria that we wanted in terms of height that we wanted in a quarterback,” Lillibridge said of Brees. “And you can make exceptions, but our old axiom used to be: Once you make one exception, you’re going to have a team full of exceptions.”
Brees has become of the most prolific passers on this generation, a 10-time Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl MVP with the New Orleans Saints.
“So you try to hold true to whatever philosophy you’re going to go with and stick true to your board,” Lillibridge said.
Scouts also heavily weigh player-to-team scheme based on a team’s particular scheme, where a 3-4 nose guard might not be an ideal fit as a defensive tackle in a 4-3 system, where size inside is not as vital as athleticism.
As diverse as the measurables that each team take into account are the ways teams ultimately distinguish player values for their draft board.
“Some people put colors on them — some will use gold, silver, bronze and down with colors,” Lillibridge said. “Some people have it so the highest score (a prospect) can have is 10 and then 9,8, 7, 6, 5, with 5 being a free agent grade. … That just comes from whatever formula each team has (for grading players).”
Draft grades also are a collaborative effort by multiple NFL personnel, with several scouts analyzing a single player before their analyses are combined and provided to administrative personnel.
Ultimately, the ability of knowing whether a scout’s evaluation was a home run or a strikeout is subjective.
“When the draft is over, everybody believes they got the best draft in the world, but you won’t know that for three-four years down the road,” Lillibridge said.