The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Jay Gruden on the coach's role in the draft process & how to develop prospects with Nate Tice

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Former Washington head coach and long-time NFL offensive coordinator Jay Gruden joins Robert Mays to discuss his role in the draft room, scouting prospects, finding players like Terry McLaurin, what happened with Dwayne Haskins & more as he sheds some light on how head coaches influence NFL draft decisions. Then Nate Tice and Robert discuss the process of developing players once they're drafted in their final pod together before the draft.Get all of The Athletic's incredible draft coverage with an exclusive discount at theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays, fun show for you guys today. Nate Tice is going to be joining us a little bit later to talk about what we mean when we discuss draft and development in regard to college prospects. We talk so much about the draft part of it, but we wanted to dig into what the development part of it actually means. Before we do that, though, I am thrilled to welcome former NFL head coach, long-time NFL

assistant, Jay Gruden. Jay, how you doing, man? I'm doing good. I really appreciate you doing this because we have so many conversations before the draft and so many of them are focused on the scouting side of this. That process, what front offices are looking for, what they do to hone in on players, all of that. And even when we talk about success and failure of players, I think it's mostly put on the guys doing the picking, not the guys doing the coaching all of the time. So I wanted to talk to you about how coaches get involved in the draft process, what the schedule looks like, the timeline of it, the input,

the meetings, all of that stuff. So I guess first things first, what was your first exposure to the NFL draft process as a coach? Was it when you were in Tampa with your brother? Yeah, a little bit. More so when I became offensive coordinator with the Bengals, we were heavily involved. You know, Mr. Brown has his assistance. They have a very small scouting staff, and the assistant coaches are very involved in going to pro days and in the evaluation process, along with the scouts that they do have. And a director of personnel at the time was Duke Tobin.

So after that, let's say when you were in Cincinnati, so you got there in 2011, I want to say, which was a very important draft for them. So after you got hired, how quickly after that were you involved with the draft process in that first year? That was an insane year because that was a year that the league was on strike. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God. So I had gotten a job and, you know, we had OTAs coming up and I'm trying to get with the coaches to try to meet and install my offense to the coaches first before the players came up. but the coaches were all on the road traveling to do these pro days.

I was like, when is everybody going to be in here at the same time? Because really, you know, you had your, you had your pro day schedule. And the pro days were spread out all over the month of March. And I mean, so it was really hard, tight end coach had to go to Val Dossa State.

Then he had to go to Pitt. Then he had to go to Missouri, the running back coaches over there at Clemson and UCLA, the quarterback coaches out on the West Coast. You know, and I was traveling to see Blaine Gabbart and Andy Dalton and the rest of them. Man, we had like six or seven. and we got to go see Brian Mallet,

Blaine Gabbard, all of those guys. So it was quite a try and time. I was actually relieved that we were on strikes, so I had more time to meet with the coaches. When did you get hired? Do you remember what the date was and how long that period was before you actually really had to get into it? It was shortly after the senior bowl.

So would that be... Oh, wow. That's end of January. Yeah. End of January, yeah. So it was a scramble for me to get everything going. So did you guys know just point blank? you were going to draft a quarterback in that draft?

Was that just an understanding when the process began? Yeah, we also knew that there were two receivers that were very good. And that was Julio and AJ. So that was the debate. You know, we were taking one of those. I know Mr. Brown wanted a receiver. He wanted one bad because we lost Ocho Cinco. He knew what kind of impact he had.

Obviously, Terrell Owens was there the year before. They're both gone. Carson Palmer said he wasn't coming back at all. So all we had on our roster was, I think, Jordan Palmer. and I can't remember the other kid's name. So that was all we had. So we knew we needed to get a receiver and we needed to get a quarterback. Cam Newton was the top quarterback.

We kind of figured he was going to go number one. The whole debate was going to be between Julio and AJ. And now we had to wait until the second round to get the quarterback. Okay, I have to ask about the Julio and AJ conversation because that's fascinating. And obviously there was the foot trouble with Julio before the draft. So that was the consideration. So were there two factions in the building? Was there like a Julio faction and an AJ?

action? Not so much. I think it was, I think everybody was pretty much on the same page with AJ because of the foot. You also had a thumb, I believe. You had a thumb or something he broke as well. So with the injuries, being that it was pretty close, I think AJ, then getting to meet him and going to his pro day. Actually, he went to his pro day. We weren't allowed to watch them. We had to sit inside some rule. I don't know. I can't remember what it was. But watching him at the combine and all that stuff. Both of them are tremendous players, tremendous athletes, but I think consensually it was pretty much on AJ because of Julio's injury. It was a little bit of a daunting task to get the Jets scrambled that quickly to pick your quarterback of the future after only being

on the job for a couple months. Because there are a couple teams that I think are an interesting spot right now. Atlanta is a good example where you have a staff that's hired and you only have a couple months to figure out. Do we want to draft our guy in this draft? It seems like that's a really truncated time period to make a decision that big. So did you feel like you had enough time to go over all of the possible guys, all of the possible avenues in that couple months before you guys actually had to pull the trigger? We didn't have a choice. Yeah.

You know, we knew that we had to get a quarterback. So we hit all the quarterbacks hard in that draft class as far as busy with them. And we kind of had it narrowed down to the guys we wanted. Andy was actually one of our top choices in that draft. We knew that where he was valued to go. We knew we'd have to hold on for deer life to get him in the second round. But fortunately, Seattle didn't take them. And we thought that Seattle might take them.

But they took Carpenter, I think the offense alignment. So we got them. But we had Ryan Mallet was also on our board a little bit. I know some people liked him in his arm strength. You know, Kaepernick was in that draft, I believe. Some people like this is athleticism. But I think for Marvin Lewis, what he wanted, what I wanted, offensive coordinator Andy Dalton was the guy we wanted.

So when you guys are narrowing in on that and you're going through those different sorts of options, who was like the group in the room during those meetings where you're discussing which quarterback is best? Is it split with the coaching staff and the scouting staff? Are you guys all together? Logistically, what does it look like during those conversations? Typically, when you do quarterbacks, you have the area scout, the scout is responsible for that area where he's from. So our Southwest Scout, whoever that was for Cincinnati, then you that's their director of personnel. He weighs in.

Obviously, Mr. Brown, the owner will weigh in because he actually, for an owner, really studied the film, sat in all the meetings, and knows a heck of a lot of football, more so than a lot of coaches in the NFL. I mean, he's been around the block, studies these guys. So he's a great asset to have as well. Mr. Coach Lewis, obviously knowing the importance of the quarterback position, was heavily involved in a quarterback position, myself and the quarterback coach. At the time was Kenny Zampezi, who's here now.

So when you're comparing different guys, especially at that position, what does it look like visually? Do you have certain traits that you've ranked them on? Is it just a one, two, three, four, five? Like what sort of specifics are you debating back and forth between each guy or are you more talking about them as a general, complete idea and how they relate to one another? A little bit of both, really. I think there's certain guys that will have a skill set athletically. maybe they may be a little bit better than more of a standard dropback quarterback. So you have to target, you have to identify how you think they're going to help your team, especially early in his

career. Is he going to be a true dropback pastor? If he is, he better be really, really smart because you've got to handle a lot of protections. You got to know a lot of route concepts. You've got to be able to handle a lot mentally. If he's athletic, you can rely on some of the zone reads, some of the RPO's nowadays, getting them outside the pocket. It may be a little bit easier for him. So those things will weigh in a little bit. We were looking for more of a, since we're going to draft AJ, you're going to Julio Jones in the first round, we had to get a drop back, somebody who could drop back and throw it.

So obviously Andy fit the skill set that we liked. We knew that he played three or four years in college at TCU. He had a lot of success. He could run a little bit over a thousand yards rushing in his career. So we knew a lot about Andy, did a lot of work with him, and he was a good fit for us. Did you be with him beforehand, just you and a couple other guys? What were the dialogues like between you and Andy before that process or during that process?

Oh, yeah. We went to his pro day. We also flew him up for one of the visits. So we had a lot of time with them. So, you know, I think you try to get him like a playbook of about 30 or 40 plays. Get him in a mail so he can study it for a couple days. Then he flies up. We meet with him.

We talked about the playbook. What do you learn? What he digested? Draw some plays up that he saw that he recognized. What do you think this play for? What's his coverage? If you get this coverage, how you can handle it? If I call these two plays in the huddle, why would I call these two plays in the huddle?

Which one is for man? which ones for zone. Some of that stuff. Just see how they translate football. It's not that hard, but obviously if somebody didn't study it and they struggle with that minor of a playbook, little of a playbook, you know, it'd be a major problem for them coming in.

But all those guys, Cam, Andy, all those guys, they pass it with flying colors. They're all smart enough. When you're playing quarterback at that level, surely you should be smart enough to handle that. Well, there are one or two things that put it over the finish line with Andy that you made you just think with conviction, this is the guy that we can believe in?

I think, you know, the one thing that we like about any, coach Lewis and I and Kenny Zampeze is that he did a lot of things at TCU that we would do. He was under center a lot, did the play action under center. He did some zone reads. He did some shotgun quick game. He did some bootlegs. He did just a little bit of everything, which showed that he had the skill set that we could at least, heck, we're not teaching a brand new thing to them.

You know, some of these quarterbacks are a shotgun every play. We've got to teach him out of hold his hands under center for goodness sake. I mean. So, you know, maybe you just go shot and gun the whole time if you draft the guy like that. But we knew that he played a lot of football, had a lot of success. What was also impressive about Andy was our personal workout. We had a personal workout as well. He went. A lot of quarterbacks, they muster up one or two receivers. The whole, the whole dang team came out for Andy. It worked out for him, you know, so it was pretty cool. He had a, he was like the Pied Piper out there, and, you know, we fell in love with a kid. And we knew that he could handle a lot of information.

It was struggle early on, but really as a rookie, he played pretty. pretty well. We were nine and seven. I went to the plows with him as a rookie. I mean, he's one of the most productive, valuable second round picks in a long, long time. You just don't typically find quarterbacks in that range. If you look at the history of it, it's pretty bleak. I mean, it's Andy, Derek Carr, Drew Brees, Colin Kaepernick, and that's really the end of the list. Did you guys have that in mind, or was that a point of conversation at all looking at the history of guys taken in that range and whether or not they've tended to work out? Yeah, we didn't do much on in history, we knew that we were pretty much all in.

You know, we ended up signing Bruce Radkowski to be the backup. He played for, played with Tampa Bay when I was there. So I got to know Bruce a little bit. But I knew that, you know, as much as I love Bruce, he needs to be a backup. You know, he's a good player. He's won some games, but I knew he'd be a quality backup, a good call me and influence for Andy once we got him. Plus, we had to cater to Andy in training camp.

And once we got him, we had no OTAs. We had to give Andy every rep. And I knew Bruce could handle. be in the backup and watching Andy take all these reps. And fortunately, it worked out good. The first preseason game was a little nerve-wracking. Second one was a little more nerve-wracking. And the third one, he started to calm down a little bit.

We felt pretty good going into the first game against Cleveland. But yeah, you know, I think when you weren't expecting a guy to play that much, that early and be that much of your team's offense leader, they better have a held background and played a lot. And you better know mentally that he can handle it. Because one of the parts that I remember vividly was I think it was a third preseason game. And he had hit right in the mouth, like full throttle, dead squirt and under the chin. And that's when you can see a quarterback. What's he do on the next play? You know what I mean?

What's he do on a next series? Does he have the physical toughness to step back in there, drop back on third and eight after getting hit on second and eight, and deliver a strike? And he went into an all-out blitz stepped into it through a pass of Jordan Shipley. I know for the one-yard line. And I said, hey, we got a chance with this guy now, boys. But you just never know some guys. You know, some guys can handle the mental adversity. Some guys can't. And unfortunately, for a lot of guys who have been drafted high as of late,

some guys just haven't been able to handle that workload and the adversity part of the playing in position. It's interesting that you mentioned the Bruce Gradykowski part of it because something that I've talked to coaches about a lot recently over the last couple years and something I've learned a lot about is just the way that you think about the makeup of that quarterback room and how you have to think about the personalities and the way they play off one another.

when you were looking at what you wanted that backup quarterback to be over your entire career, how did you think about that position in relation to your starter? Exactly like Bruce. He is one of the greatest teammates I've ever been around as far as a guy that you know wants to play, right, but also understands the importance of his role being a backup and supporting a guy like Andy Dalton early in his career. There are times, I'm sure Bruce thought he's better than Andy early in his career. but he never wavered off his role.

I was very supportive, and that's the type of guy you got to have in that role. You don't want any controversial head-banging quarterbacks in the room every day. You know, it's got to be a calming room once they come in there and compete at practice and get yelled at and make mistakes and come in that room. You want to be able to relax, speak your mind, and not worry about somebody trying to backstab you or take your job. And Bruce, you never do that. He was a great backup to half.

So obviously that year was an outlier. In 2012, when you actually get to calm down a little bit and exhale and it's a normal season, what's the timeline after the season ends? When do you typically come to a standard draft class in a year that doesn't involve a lockout? Yeah, I think what happens is you take a couple weeks off right after the season. And then typically you get into free agency because free agency is before the draft. So you got to get all your draft grades in on all the free agents at your position. So if I'm the quarterback coach, you'll have seven or eight free agent quarterbacks. You got a great.

If I'm the coordinator, I got to do pretty much the whole offense. Offensive line coach will do obvious offensive line. Whatever the scouts give him to do, we'll do. And once we get those grades in and we figure out what approach they're going to take a free agency, that's usually the head coach. And obviously, Mr. Brown here, obviously, is Bruce Allen and Eric Schaefer and, and Scott McLuhan when he was here. Then we're done with that.

Then we dive into the draft. and then the scouts, the head scout, which was Kyle Smith at the end, or Duke Tobin and Cincinnati, they would give us the list, each position, the list of players that they wanted grade. And that takes a lot of time. You know, some linebacker, linebacker, I remember Chad Grimm had a ton of outside linebackers here. It had a bunch of inside backers. You know, there's a bunch of coach Callahan had about 40 or 50 offensive linemen. If you had to grade 40 offense alignment, in order to grade them correctly, it takes a lot of time.

So we got to get those lists early and you got to study them. you got to grade them, try to get to know them, call their coaches if you can. So there's a big process involved in that. So you really have to take an account which guys are realistically we're going to go after. If we're not going to draft one in the first round, there's no reason to do the top four or five guys. We're not going to get them. So you might want to study a little bit down the road a little bit, try to find a sleeper in a second or third or fourth or fifth round. So that's also a part of the process, which is very important.

The list of guys, was it streamlined at all when you got it or were you able to kind of make those distinctions of like that guy isn't going to be available. Did they pair it down the list at all before they even gave it to you, the scouting staff? They tried to pair it down as best they could. Gotcha. Kyle, when Kyle was here in Duke, they did a great job as far as they already had the information from the area scouts and they did their work as far as getting the list to us as fast as they could.

Some of them had red flags, whether it's injury or character. We may not have done. So they were able to eliminate some of those guys. And then some guys may have got eliminated as a process went on. Maybe they didn't time so well at their pro day or the combine or what have you, but we still had to initially do the work. You know, some guys, you know, quite frankly, unfortunately, they'll be taken off the board quickly. They just aren't long enough. They're not fast enough, whatever it was, they're not tall enough, whatever it might be.

Maybe it's a height, weight, speed issue they get taken off the board rather quickly. But for the most part, there's a lot of work done on these kids from a lot of different people, you know. As a head coach, I probably did a lot more than any other head coached in pro football. football as far as great in these guys. I just enjoyed it coming from the leagues that I came from. I thought personnel evaluation was the most critical part of the game. And, you know, took a lot of pride in it. Didn't always get my own way, but it was fun to do.

Was there, what would you say the change was between being a coordinator and a head coach? Was your purview? Did you look at defense a little bit more as a head coach? Was it very similar? I mean, how would you compare those two jobs in the way that you saw the draft? I look at defense a lot more. I knew that as a head coach, we had to fix our defense. And I think we made good strides throughout my six years there as far as doing that.

You know, we dropped some pretty good players in the first, second or third round, got Matt I'm nice in the fifth. We got Cole Holcomb in the fifth. We got some pretty good value picks. We got Kendall Fuller. We ended up trade them, but for Alex Smith, unfortunately. But we had some pretty good picks. Preston Smith was up there.

Ryan Anderson hadn't really panned out, but he was still a good solid player for us. obviously, Duran Payne and Jonathan Allen, great fix for us. A list goes on and on. We did a pretty good job of upgrading. Fabio Moro played a lot of good snaps for us. So, yeah, it took a lot of pride in defense. We had to upgrade our defense, so I did spend a lot of time. That's the difference.

As an offensive coordinator, your only focus is offense. When you were looking at a defensive position, did you feel comfortable in what you were seeing, or is that something where you would kind of check the tape with some of your defensive staff in a way you might not have to with offensive players. No, I felt great about it, really. I feel just good watching defensive players, offensive players. I know what offenses are trying to do. I know what coverages they're supposed to be in,

what their run integrity, what their run gap is supposed to be, if they're a linebacker, defense alignment, I love watching pass rushers. Anytime I got a chance to watch some tape as far as one-on-ones, if they were in a senior bowl or the East West Shrine or whatever bowl game it was, I'd try to find them and see if they had any one-on-one pass rushes, a one-on-one cover. bridges. Those bull games to me were invaluable to get these guys in one-on-one situations,

some seven-on-seven situations, just see how they react and play and practice. The guys that weren't in those games, a little bit more difficult. You had to rely on some of the pro days, the combine, if they were invited. But yeah, there's a lot of information, a lot of tape. You just got to find it and look for it. When you were watching offensive players, was there one or two positions that you just, as soon as you got to sit down and dig into it, you're like, this is what I enjoy. Like this is moment in, moment out. This is really what I like about scouting players. You know, actually my favorite position to watch is past rushers. Steve, that's why I love watching past rushers, you know, because I know, you know,

come from the leagues that I came from, it's all about hitting a quarterback. So you got to be able to hit the quarterback. I love watching those. But also, obviously, my pastest quarterback play. I love watching quarterbacks. It just takes so much time to watch them all. And, and you try to find a diamond interrupt you can, a later round pick. And, but it's a lot of fun watching quarterbacks. I love watching third down backs, backs out of the back field, picking up blitzes. I like receivers, man. I like watching receivers do all the kinds of different things, quick game, run the screens. I love to see if they can dig out the safety in the run game. And just the total package of watching these guys and watching them perform, how they were coached.

And, you know, some guys didn't do some things you would want them to do, but they weren't asked to do it so you couldn't blame them. Some of their playbooks were very vanilla, but it wasn't their fault. So you have to take that in consideration, too, both offensively and defensively. some coverage, some teams only play one or two coverage. You're like, good God. I mean, can I see this guy in man coverage? It's not that he can't cover, it's just he hadn't been asked to. So you have to take that of consideration as well. How do you do that?

How do you try to project something that you don't see? Do you feel like it's, all right, we have to bet on the traits here. Do you talk to somebody who may be able to have a sense of, well, if he can do this and he can do that? How do you work through that process? That's part of that. I mean, you get to look at their traits, look at their length. You know, if they have long arms and can run pretty good. then obviously we should be able to teach them some man-to-man techniques or zone techniques,

whatever it might be. You see him at the combine or his pro day, watch him change directions. They do a pretty good job at the combine in the pro day as far as making them open their hips, especially defensive backs and linebackers and pass pressure to get through these drills with the bags and all that stuff. So you can see them bend a little bit, seeing if they're stiff, if they're too rigid, if they can't change direction. Obviously, that's a major knock on them.

But you just try to go through the whole process. and see if they'll fit what you're trying to do. Over the course of your time, let's say Washington, that's limited to that. When you were in Washington, do you remember in the pre-draft process one or two guys that as soon as you saw them, you're like, that's my guy?

And it might not even been in your range. You might not have been able to draft them realistically, but a couple of guys you just remember falling in love with during the process. Well, yeah, I mean, you always do. And that's the hard part. You know, you spend so much time watching these guys, and you're so fired up, man, I want this safety. I want this defense. I want this three technique.

I want this offensive attack. I want whoever it might be, you fall in love with them and they're too low with our scouts. I feel like we got to get them up there. And if we get them up there, not high enough, he's going to be gone. There's arguments. There's fights. Kyle Smith, I know he loves some guys. We're both very passionate about what we did.

That's why it's kind of fun. We butt heads a little bit, but never in a negative way, more of a competitive way. Why do you like him and all that stuff? But for sure, you always, when you watch a guy, and you just got to be careful. Sometimes it's the mood you're in. You might come to work in this crappy mood. You put these guys on and you're like,

this guy stinks. Forget this guy. And at some days you come, it's something good happened to you a night before. You're like, hey, let's go. Oh, I love this guy. You just got to make sure you listen to all the input. That's why it's important for you to take your time and do the evaluation.

So let's say I'm doing a past wrestler that I really like. Let me go see Coach Tom Suler, Chad Grimm, and see what they have on them. I don't really like them. I don't think his getoff's good enough. He doesn't use his hands. I'm like, yeah, really? And then I'll go back to the area scout and we'll talk to Kyle and see what we think.

And they may disagree with him. And I'll try to find the one of degrees with me and then I'll put the grade accordingly. But it's always good. And I have changed my mind on certain guys. So maybe it's only two or three games that I watch and somebody watched another two or three games where he wasn't as good or maybe something happened after early in the season. Maybe hurt his ankle or something like that wasn't as good or something else might happen. So there's a lot you have to take an account.

It's never a for sure process. But if you watch the film, you study it, you take the advice of the people watching it, put it all together. You'll be more right than wrong most of the time. Do you remember a guy that you came around on, somebody that you remember really swinging on during the process? Yeah, probably Jonathan Allen. Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

Yeah. He was, well, he was projected to be like, let me clarify this. He was projected to be like a top five pick. I remember. And when I watched him, I like, this guy's not a top five pick. You know what I mean? Later in the first round, I was fine with it.

But, you know, and then the more I watched him, the more athletic he became. You know, at first when I watched him, I thought he was just a two gaping at the line of scrimmage type guy. I was like, we can find those anywhere. We could find those third, fourth, fifth round. We don't need to take him first. But then you watch him start to, some of these third down, start to really rush the pastor and get into some of his athleticism. So I did come around a little bit on him.

And Alabama does a decent amount of that. And I think that you, that's probably something you have to work through. When you're not confused, but when you're back and forth about scheme and about a player's role within what he's supposed to be doing in college, do you reach out to a lot of college coaches and try to get some clarity about what they're asking guys to do in certain moments just so you understand it a little bit better? Yeah, for sure. He tried to have the position coach or the area scout will do that for you. I can't call every coach. Of course.

I didn't have time to do that. But for sure, he tried to do as much research as he could. finding about the character, the scheme that they were asked to do. But, you know, if you're coaching a national football, you should figure out what scheme they're doing at Alabama. And Jonathan was a great player. But it just seemed like whenever they brought in a backup, backup was just as good as him.

I was like, how many guys can they possibly have? Now we know a lot. Yeah. It almost feels like when you're going around and you're talking to the guys in your building, do you feel like you have to do any lobbying? Do you feel like you're trying to sway people onto your side every once in a while? I did it all the time. I was a great sales.

If I liked the guy and somebody didn't like him, I'd make a highlight film and make him come in and watch it. And here's why I like them. And yeah, yeah, sometimes it works. Sometimes it didn't. But I always try to back up my claims with factual film footage or why I like this guy. How would you guys meet? Would it be mostly the coaches together and then the personnel guys together?

Was it a mixture? Because I know that a lot of teams are trying to be vigilant about making sure their biases are out in the open and they're trying to check themselves and rethink things. So how did you guys try to set it up to do that? Well, initially, I think the season is still going on. There's a lot of meetings that take place before the coaches get involved, get any kind of list. Obviously, the list hasn't come from somewhere.

So the scouts and Kyle at the time would have meetings with them and Bruce and they'd go over the character, the grades that they had so they could get an initial board set and starting to get our list together. And then we would have, once we got our list, we started doing the grades. do it by position, really. So if we did defense first, defense coordinator, to be in every meeting, we start with the defense align, start with the big guys, and we go to the edge guys,

and we go to the inside backers, and we go to the safeties, and we go to the corners. So when you guys had disagreements, when you and Kyle would be on different sides of something, how would it play out? What was the process of trying to iron out those changes and those differences between you?

The biggest thing we tried to get on the same page was where we had them projected on the board. You know what I mean? So if it was a safety and our scouts at him as a 2-1 early second round guy and I said this guy can't run and the defensive back coach Ray Horton at the time might have said, yeah, he can't play. I mean, he's okay but he can't run good enough. Same as me. We might drop him down to 4-1. That's what the most of the discussions came from. You know what I mean? Most of these guys in college football, most of these guys are going to have some traits that you're going to have to deal with.

You know, they might be, they might run a step slow. They may not be as big as you want them to be or long as they want to be. You're going to have to develop something in some of these guys. Not them we're going to come in at 6'3-run 4, 3, 4th, 4th, and strike you like Sean Taylor. There aren't many, those guys aren't around anymore. Those guys are easy to find. We're trying to find these guys in third, fourth, or fifth round

and maybe have a skill set we can develop a toughness about them, something that we consider, you know, a Washington football team player type guy, trait that we're looking for and get on the same page and make sure we don't draft any bad character guys, any risk guys like that that will come in and stink up our locker room. That's very important to me as well. And then obviously injuries. You don't want to take a guy with major injuries. Fortunately, we did that, missed on a couple guys, and it was insane.

But, yeah, I want to get me on that. But so, yeah, so you try to get all that stuff out and make your decisions properly and just make sure you get all the riff-wrap out of there, the red flags, the end. injury guys and then try to find out the guys the best fits your team, not only physically, but also mentally and come in as a good teammate. In the process that you guys went through, but I mean, I guess in Washington specifically, I mean, I know a couple of them, but are there a couple just that are still frustrating to you the way it played out and just the way that conversations and everything else and

just you wish you could have back now that you look back on it? Well, you know, for sure. And I made, and really, I've made some. mistakes as well. I think this guy's a great play. It turned out to be cutting a year and a half. That's happened before, not very often, but it's happened. Mistakes happen. But if you're not in charge of the draft, and that's not on your contract, then you can't be too upset. So I kind of dealt with it, but that's why I also wanted to watch the film and study. So I had an argument. I just want to be the guy just to disagree because I, you know, I don't believe you. So I'm just

going to disagree and be a jerk as well. I had reasons. I watched the film. I saw their pro day. I saw him at the senior bowl, or I saw every practice rep that he had in the East West Shrine game. This is why I like them or is this why I don't like them. So, yeah, at least I had reasons for my dislike for some of the picks. But the end of the day, once you pick them, they're on your team and you got to deal with them and welcome in with open arms. So I wanted to talk to you about those next couple years after you guys drafted Andy and AJ because I think that it's a really interesting process of, All right, how do I surround my young quarterback with diverse weapons and weapons that complement each other? So when you guys walked into those 2012-2013 drafts, how did you see the pieces fitting together with Marvin and Seneu and A.J. Green?

How do you think about that? You're exactly right. They fit in perfect. It was great. We couldn't dream of a better scenario. Now, there might have been some better players that we didn't pick that we could have got, but for what we were looking for in the work that we did. did on these guys. Taking Tyler Eifer from Notre Dame was a great fit. I mean, really. Now, granted, Kelsey was out there as well and Eirch was out there as well, but you could argue Kelsey at the time. He had some injuries at Cincinnati, but we all love Tyler. Tyler was a great player for us

early on, so he was a great. We needed another tight end and go at Jermaine Gresham, because Jermaine was a pretty good player. We needed a third down back badly. I couldn't take it any longer. Giovanni Bernard, North Carolina. I love the kid, man. I mean, unbelievable. You talk about a skill set that he had this explosive and catching the ball was effortless. One of the best kids I've ever been around. You know, I mean, just unbelievable kid. So that was an easy pick for us. We brought him in for a visit. How many kids do this nowadays? Brought him in for a visit and met with all the coaches of Mr. Brown. He left. Mr. Brown gets a letter to mail from Giovanni Bernard. Hey, thank you, Mr. Brown. It was a pleasure meeting. How many guys take time to write a hand?

handwritten letter to the owner. My handwriting is terrible. I wouldn't be able to do it even if I wanted to, so I feel like I'm out of the consideration. I don't even know if I know how to mail an envelope right now. I was trying to sign my name the other day. I could barely do it. I'm so used to like clicking the docu sign stuff these days.

My handwriting is just gone totally to shit. So that's, and I think that's interesting because when you're thinking about guys, especially in the past catching group, do you see a guy through the lens of this is how he's different? than AJ. Like, would you guys talk about it in those terms? Yeah, for sure.

You know, if AJ's getting a lot of double coverage, you know, they're playing a lot of too deep or rolling up to them. They're playing quarter quarter half to AJ to try to take them out. The running back gets put on these backers, and it's a nightmare for these guys or the tight end, opposite side of them gets one-on-one as well. So these inside-out type weapons that you have, then we needed a slot receiver so most of new is easy.

We already had Andrew Hawkins, but we got him as a free agent, which was a lucky fine. and Marvin, you're always looking for a guy. AJ was a guy that was tough enough, but we didn't want AJ to have to be the guy to come in motion if we're going to run the ball and block safeties and do all that stuff, you know what I mean? So we had to get a tougher guy.

Mos Samu was physical. That's why we drafted Moe. I wanted his physicality. He could play in a slot. He had really good feet. He ran like a 4-6-4 or something like that at the Combine, which wasn't too excited for a lot of people, but his hands were unbelievable.

He played some quarterback, Wildcat, We knew he's tough as hell. So that was like why we're attracted to him. Marvin was a fifth rounder from Cal. Just one tough guy. He's another guy that if you want, if you had a daughter and you wanted her to marry somebody who was first class and a great person, Marvin Jones is another one.

Just having those guys, most new Marvin, AJ, Andrew Hawkins, what a way to walk into your meeting every day. There's always bright-eyed, they're willing to work. They're young. They're hungry. They're talented. It was one of the most fun groups I've ever had to work with. It's so interesting because everywhere you've gone over the last couple of stops,

when you just think about it and you picture the past catching cores together, you just see how it all fits together. Washington in like the 2015-2016 range is the same way, right? Because you have Deshawn as a speedster. You have Jameson Crowder as a perfect slot option. You have Garsohn as like the prototypical route running outside option. You have Chris Thompson as a past catching back and you have Jordan Reed. When you think about it, that's how you'd build.

a group of pass catchers. Yeah. The only issue that we had was, was which receiver was going to be that guy to dig out safeties and stuff like that. That's right. There's not a lot of big physical guys in that group. That's fair.

I'll never forget. We were running a walkthrough. We lined up in a bunch formation. We had to Sean Jackson come in short motion. It was a walkthrough by you. And he had to dig the safety out. And we're going to hand them all off to the back. And after the walkthrough played the shock game.

And we go, hey, group, we're, that's really not part of our game plan, is it? I go, no, we put Ryan Grant in for that one. And everybody wonders why I love Ryan Grant. I had to put Ryan Grant, do all the dirty work. Just take a beating. He wasn't that physical either, but he was the only one that would do it. Yeah, that was the toughest part about half of those guys was if you wanted to run the ball and be physical, running a ball, dig out safety.

We didn't have a guy. But when Deshaun was in the game, most teams were playing too high anyway, so we didn't have to worry about it. And just in terms of that specific skill sets, would you guys go into drafts knowing we have to come away with a guy that can do this particular thing. Did it get that granular, especially later in the draft? Yeah, for sure. You know, their tight ends are a great example. You know, there's so many scouts that watch these tight ends and they say,

oh, my gosh, he just got great hands. He's fast. He can run all these routes. I say, well, then let's put him a receiver because he can't block me. You know, if you really watch him in the running game, he's the worst blocking tight end I've ever seen. How am I going to use them? You know, and I asked the scouts, how do you expect me to use a tight end that can't block?

You better have a tight end. on your roster that can block and then your second tight end, maybe you can get away with it, and he can block safety's out in space or what have you, but you can't draft too many of these guys that are luxury items. You're going to have to get a Buick every now and at a tough car that can do some to the dirty work, you know, and same with the receiver,

all these speed guys. Somebody's got to go in there and be physical, block for the bubble screens, block for the running back on the stretch plays. So there's definitely skill sets. It can be very easy to, target, past catching running back, for instance. You know, it's just great to have big, strong running back plow through the line of scrimmage for a game of three.

But we need somebody out in space that can be a linebacker one-on-one, especially in the red zone teams. They're double covering the receivers. It's tough to find. So you've got to find that one-on-one matchup, and usually it's the running back or the tight end that you can get them. So you got to have guys that can win in that regard. So, yeah, you have to have some specific skill sets that you're looking for, especially at

certain positions. When you're thinking about a guy like Chris Thompson at his height, he's He was such a good player and he was so useful. Are you putting him into positions and into route combinations that you've already imagined or is his skill set informing the design of certain plays? Which direction does that often go? Yeah, it's a great question. I think when I have a guy like Chris Thompson,

that's when I can be creative with formations and then obviously route specific for Chris. The issue is is when he gets hurt, the next guy can't do all that, so all those plays are dead. I had that argument, Jordan Reed. You know, my last year at Washington, Jordan had the concussion after the third preseason game. He was like cleared till Friday every week that we played first five games. And he has his own set amount of plays that you're practicing all week and you're installing about 40 of them, you know, whether he's motioning in the two tight end set or the three tight end set or the one tight end set where he's out wide by himself or maybe he's in the slot.

And then when he's unavailable to play, I can't do that. a sprinkle or whoever the next guy is. No offense, but he doesn't have the same skill set. They're not unique players. Yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah, yeah, specific plays for certain players. The negative is if something happens to them, you lose those plays, but you have plenty other plays to choose from.

So the last thing I want to ask you that, 2019 draft, Terry McLaren going in the third round, I just, he's been such a productive player, he's been so good. When you guys are looking at that group of receivers, were you surprised that he was available that late in the draft based on what he tested at. I mean, obviously he's a little bit older, everything else. What were the considerations just with him and kind of finding a gem in the draft in the third round like that? Well, I think when you look at Terry's, you know, career at Ohio State, it was nothing really spectacular. You know, I think he was the second or maybe third best receiver at Ohio State. Ferris Campbell has had much more production than Terry.

But when you looked at Terry at the senior bowl, he was far in the way the best player and senior ball. And I don't understand how he lasts in the third round, to be honest. Not to mention he was a team captain Ohio State twice as a whiteout. You never hear of that. Not to mention he was a special team standout. So worst case scenario, let's say he comes in here and he, you know, maybe he's not the best receiver on the team. Maybe he's our fourth best receiver. Well, he'll be our best flyer on punt. He'll play punt or treat. He can play kickoff. So at least we got something we know that he can really benefit our football team. we didn't have to worry about that.

He was our best receiver, so he didn't have to play fun. When you have a guy like that who was not the best receiver on his college team, but he goes to the senior bowl. He's the best receiver there. So that evens the playing field a little bit. Do you almost have to check your opinions that you had coming into the process? Like, man, I should go back and watch some of this stuff. I'm sure it sends you back to the drawing board every once in a while

when there are disparate opinions or disparate results from a guy like that. Yeah, for sure. That's why the more you watch, the more different opinions you're going to get. If you just limit yourself to one or two games, maybe Terry didn't play that well against Purdue or like nobody did for Ohio State in that game. And then you watched the Washington game, the bowl game, and they didn't really play that great against Washington either.

But then you go watch them at the senior bowl. You're like, holy cow, who's this guy? Then you go watch more games up to him. And you're forced to do that. You say, hey, wait a minute, this guy can't play. He's pretty darn good. We should move him up fast, especially when he runs a 4-3-1 or whatever he ran at the combine. That's the thing is the fact that

he was an exemplary guy. He clearly had played at a high level in college even if the production wasn't there. But then he tests like that. It's like, he just seems good. I don't really know what else there is. Another great story about Terry was we're at the pro day because we were obviously watching Duane and Paris Campbell and Terry and

they had an offensive lamb that I kind of liked. Paris Campbell kind of pulled his hand me a little bit. So I'm like, Paris, I came all the way out here to watch you run these dang routes. And you can't even practice. And Terry, he must have run 300 droughts that day. He was like, I'll do him. Sure, I'll do that one. He was unbelievable.

And you can just see, you're like, you know, I kind of like Terry, better than Paris, fellas. And there you go. I mean, it's just so interesting that that's how it happens. And then you watch what they've both been. Obviously, Paris has been heard, but McCorn has been one of the better picks in recent years. They're both great kids.

They're both great players. So both of them so fast, good players, good kids. So happy to get either one of them. I'm barely, very happy we got there. So in that same draft, obviously, you guys take a quarterback in the first round. And it's been talked about the fact that there was a disconnect between what some people in the building wanted,

what others wanted. What was that conversation like on draft night when you guys were honing in on that and eventually making that pick? We're talking all the different scenarios. The night before, Kyle and myself and Bruce and all that. So we tried to do the best we could. It was different scenarios.

Deep down aside, I knew we were going to take Haskins if he was available. I just knew it. We had a lot of range of grades on them. You know, not everybody has. them as a first round grade. I know we had Coach Calvinall, we had Coach O'Connell, we had myself, we had a lot of good insight on the quarterback position guys who have played it, guys have coached it for a long

time, and not everybody who's on the same fate as far as the first rounder. Not that he's not a productive quarterback, not that he's not going to be a great quarterback in the NFL, we just have different varying grades on him. It wasn't a consensus first round guy. That's just the way it was. But he was for, you know, the people at the top who made the decisions. That's how it went. But the other guys, the other scenarios, we're trying to figure out because really, I remember that draft pretty good. And if we didn't get a quarterback in the first round, which we had, we still had Case Keatham and Colt coming off the injury. We're looking at a couple other ones down the road, which we would have felt pretty good about. Let Kaye Sabaat try to develop these other younger guys, possibly or Cole to piece healthy. But what we're going to do at that position of 15, you know, Savage was there, going to be there. Obviously, sweat was going to be there. Those were the decisions we had to make burns. I think he got picked right before us, Carolina, Florida State.

So we had a couple scenarios we're looking at at 15. And when Dwayne was available, when Miami passed on them, I kind of knew we were going to take them. So it was a mute point. At that point, like you said, they're on the roster. You have to coach them. I mean, it's just one of those things that you just put your head down and understand, I have to make the best of this, even if we weren't in lockstep when we made the decision. Yeah, you know, the tough part looking back at it really is, is,

30 off season, they don't give my assistant coaches an extension, which I had every year. So, you know, your seat is very hot. It's well known. I have a very hot seat. So we drafted a quarterback in the first round. And the first thing I get told is, hey, don't worry, you can be patient with. I'm patient with you, you can let them develop. I said, let them develop for who?

I'm not going to be here if he doesn't, you know, if he doesn't pan out, you know, so we, you know, that's a tough part. You know, you're telling a coach one thing and you're drafting a kid for the future. And so it's very difficult in that regard. But and then not to mention, we have three quarterbacks battling for the starting job. So, you know, that's, that's unfair to all three. I wish we could handle a little bit differently. But there's a reason for everything and see what happens. And that's the funny part, right?

It's we try to talk about this stuff like it's a vacuum. And this is what you should do in ideal circumstances. When in reality, there are human beings making these decisions with competing motivations at times with self-interest at times in play. I mean, there's so many different aspects as to why these decisions get made, why they may or may not work out, that we just don't give enough credence, I think, too often. Yeah, well, in fairness to the person who made the pick, he had the D.C.'s, he had the fan base in mind when he made the pick. He wanted to be great. He wants to win titles. You know,

he just didn't take a lot of the input that we would have given them. But at the end of the day, I mean, Dwayne was projected to be at the top five, the top 10 pick. You know, he comes out when he gets picked and says that, I'm going to make everybody pay for this, whatever. So it's not like he was a terrible pick at the time. You know, we got great draft grades. Which is always the most important thing. Yeah.

I just hope, you know, I think it'll still, it still has a chance to click for him once he settles into a role and learns the game and then studies it and gets another opportunity. I'm sure you'll take it. Awesome. Jay, I really appreciate the time. This was great. I certainly learned a lot.

Thank you very much for doing it. And hopefully we can catch up later down the road. You got it. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Jay. I'm very happy now to welcome my good friend, Nate Tyson. Nate, how are you doing, buddy? Doing great.

We got like another kin person on, you know, you have the Groon boys. I'm coming on next, you know. Member of a football family. It's the Kinn episode. The football, yeah, football business, the family business. So we talked to Jay about. the role that coaches have in the draft process often and just when they come to it and what those conversations look like and everything else. And I want to stick with that a little bit

because when we hear about drafting and we hear about teams that are successful at it, the term we hear over and over is draft and develop, draft and develop teams that draft and develop. We talk so much about the draft side of that. We spend hours and hours and months and three shows a week on this stupid podcast talking about the draft. And we never talk about the development side of it. And what actually goes in to getting the most out of these guys after you've gotten them into the building. And I wanted to talk to you about that because you've been in some of these buildings.

And I think that that's the aspect of this that changes. Obviously, there are different investments into scouting resources, right? You know, Jay West Ends, Bengals have four scouts. Other teams have many more than that. But I do think it's even more disparate in the way that these teams handled development. I was talking to a head coach about it today, and he said, oh, we have a program. We have an entire department. We have specific things laid out.

But maybe not every team is as intentional about it as that. And there are examples that are not. So I just wanted to talk to you about what you've seen in that process at some of the places you've been, some of the conversations you've had and what some of those approaches look like. So when you guys were in Oakland, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, no. I was going to say, yes. Yeah, sometimes like development is that magic unicorn word, like kind of like how,

yes, how culture. He's a culture coach. Okay, what else does that mean? Oh, no, they won. That's what culture is, is that they want. And, uh, yeah, I think development really is sometimes that kind of like buzzword that people want to throw around. Oh, we have a coach, we have a coaching staff of coaches that develop guys.

Some, from most part, you know, some of it just fluff. It's just the term you want to use. And I was just completely frank. But the thing is, I don't want to discredit the coaches and the staffs and the even the personnel departments that do put in extra effort and do all the emphasis on those types of things. And really, it's just coming up with a plan. It's just being aware of what a guy is. What I've seen is the good coaches have a plan for every one of their players. And not just like, oh, I see this in three years.

I see this in two years. He's going to play left tackle. That's not a plan. It's, hey, if we have an injury, he can bump down to right tackle. He can bump into guard. I think this year, you know, we'll guide them along. We'll give them more reps. We'll let them run with the twos.

And then we'll give them a couple spot reps with the right guard with the ones. It's having a plan every single day, not just with your star player. Everybody wants to coach the star players. How many, we see the trainers posting videos of all the guys that are top 10 picks, but we don't see the seventh rounder that they're working with that doesn't look so good on video. And so, you know, coaches and everybody just wants them to be a finished product. And really what it is, players have to own their own development. They really do.

It is what it is. They're professionals. You're pro. You've got to train your craft. As a coach, you're giving them tools to work in their toolbox. It might not be the right answer always, but just give them something to win with. Some guys are just so good. It doesn't matter what you tell them.

They're like, oh, you want me to, oh, we're in man coverage? Okay, I got it. Oh, we're in zone. I'm good. I got technique down. I good. Eyes are good always. But then some guys is you have to develop them along.

It's, hey, we're going to cross train this guy. We want cross train guys at different positions. Maybe it's an outside linebacker type that plays Will. And it's like, hey, you know, this guy had six sacks in college his last year. What's, hey, with the twos during camp, put him out as like a, you know, the speed rush, you know, put him out there. Let's see what he can do. That is what development is. It's trust in the player and the players having trust in the coaches to kind of guide them along and to put more on their plate and see what they can handle.

What I have seen is what poor development, developmental coaches do is just signed vets and then just plays the vets, just because they don't make that mental. It's easy. They don't make the mental error that makes you look bad because you, in your position coach, you control your own room. The head coach doesn't always know what you're teaching. So, a sudden that guy messes up. And then that guy had a defensive background looks at you, the linebacker coach. I'm talking about the head coach. He goes, what the hell are you teaching him there?

And then the coach trying to cover his ass goes, I don't know, coach. I don't know, man. He's just going on his own. But really, it's what he taught him. You see that happen all the time. That's why guys want vets. That's why, you know, the John Gruden's of the world, just Bruce Ariens. They just get vets.

They don't want to deal with rookies because they don't want them to, themselves will look bad. But I actually think that's the opposite. What do you want to do is you do want to develop these guys because it's so rewarding seeing guys the light bulbs go off for some of these guys. And I just think, yeah, it's just put an extra effort in, putting a plan together. Everyone can have a plan for a top 10 pick, but do you have a plan for the fifth rounder that maybe you could see some upside develop them in to maybe a swing tackle or a nickel corner or a third down back or a slot receiver or a number four receiver that can back up all spots? That's development. But it's having a plan, it's having trust in the system and trust in the environment that you put around a player.

Obviously, it looks different at different positions, right? With a quarterback, for example, Josh Allen developed, but he develops in plain view. You have to understand that some of those hiccups, some of those growing pains, they're going to happen in public. You're going to watch those guys be bad every once in a while. And I think that looking at Josh Allen's a success story is going to lead to a lot of mistakes over the next few years. But I think that's just a really good example of somebody that we've watched. develop in real time in front of our eyes. When we talk about development, I think it's more about guys later in the draft, like you said.

I'd say, let's say fourth round and beyond are guys, an area where you typically take developmental prospects. And I think that's why, to use that group, you can find success stories and you can look at some of the franchises that have done this well. The example for a decade was Seattle, right? You looked at Seattle and they had these guys late in the draft that ended up becoming, in some cases borderline Hall of Fame players and other cases just pro bowl lover players.

In two successive years, they draft the Cam Chancellor and Richard Sherman in the fourth rounder later. If you look at the way that they use those guys in their first couple seasons, Sherman actually did start 10 games as a rookie in 2011, but a lot of these guys come along slowly. And I think that was the gold standard before.

And I think understanding that if I'm going to take this guy, even in the fourth or fifth round, he's not going to play right away, but that's not what we need him to do. do. And you want to make those guys a part of what you do and a part of the fabric of how you build your roster that helps. I think the gold standard in my opinion now is Baltimore.

If you look at some of the guys they take, especially in certain position groups, they bring those guys along. They don't need them to be starters from day one. But if that's, he's a starter in year three after we've put some time in. I think a perfect example is the Darius Smith. So Darius Smith is a fifth round pick. He's a guy that has limitations. He's a tweener.

He weighs 2.80. He ran like a 4 at 9ish 40 or something like that at the combine. We don't really know what he is. So he just plays a smattering of snaps. In year 1, it's 30% of the snaps. In year 2, it's 40% of the snaps. In your 3, it's 50% of the snaps. In year 4, Suggs leaves.

Now he's a full-time player. And he's the sort of guy that gets that sort of contract from Green Bay. It's tough because you're not getting immediate value from that guy in a huge way because you're bringing him along slowly but that's the whole point of understanding that these guys all follow an arc

and if you stick with the timeline if you as long as you get one to two really productive years out of somebody that's still worth it for the investment you put into a fourth or fifth round pick

another really good example to me recently is Grover Stewart from Indianapolis it was a fourth round pick with 347 pounds when he was drafted out of Albany State University and you slowly

legendary Albany State But that's where you get developmental guys, right? It's from places like that where you see a guy and you say, that is not an NFL player as it currently exists. But I see one or two things. And if I can deploy him in selective ways and figure out a way to fold him into what we're doing, maybe three years from now, he's a nose tackle that can play 65% of the snaps for me. I think it just requires a patience and a foresight and an imagination that coaching staffs often don't want to have because it requires a lot of work.

Yep. It's there already, because you got to think in a coaching schedule, say they don't make the playoffs. Okay. They'll have their review, like they review their film for a week. They meet up with staffs. Okay, here's our plan. Meet up with the head coach.

Kind of like a, you know, post-mortem report. And then you get a little vacation and you come back. Most of those coaches want to figure out what the hell went wrong the whole year or they're networking on their next job. Like, you know, they're doing other things. And all of a sudden, they got working. about the combat. And then they get, then they get a list of 20, 30 players. And they're like, what am I going to find time to do this? So they're just like two games, whatever, blazing through.

They don't care about history with the guy. And I get it. I get it. It's very time consuming or just understanding what a guy does. I think the credit to the Seahawks more than anything other than identifying kind of outliers for talent, either Russell being short, Richard Sherman being a long and tall corner back before that was popular, Cam Chancellor being a supersized safety, is they identified what can these guys do. Not what they can't do. And that's such an old scouting edge and whatnot. But not all people follow it.

But no one follows it. Everyone just goes, what can't? Oh, no, don't tell me. It's when you like a player, they go, don't tell me what he can't do. What can he do? And then all of a sudden they hate a player. Then the guy, the guy's in charge goes, well, he can't do this, this and this. But you told me, I just say what he can do.

That's what you told me to tell you. But that's just people just got to remember that. And sometimes it's like there's a lack of awareness. Sometimes there's awareness of what, how a player fits in the league. It's sometimes offensive coaches can be really good about scouting defense and defensive coaches on offense, but they couldn't tell you who the best tackles are because they just coached their

tackles or they coach their receivers or they coach their running backs, their quarterback. And then, you know, they have a call. Okay, yeah, that guy's good. That's good when we watch film, he's pretty good.

But they can tell you who the good linebackers are, the good D-Ns. It's sometimes having an awareness of what else is the standard in the league. And I think scouting and coaches can forget that sometimes. And also when you get into these later round guys, past pick 100, you're hoping that they have special teams value in some sort. It's, you know, it's like being a redshirt freshman in college. It's that you can affect the play.

You can back up spots. So the traits that really you look forward to guys that can play special teams are first off, they have to be athletic. Second off, they have to be big. And third, they usually have to be tough or competitive or have a high IQ, willing to throw their body around because special team sucks. Don't get your eye, running down a punt and you're hand fighting with the guy. You have to block them.

And then you have to flip around and you're sprinting down the field. you get Mike at your ass juked by some shifty guy. Like you have to be athletic enough to cover that, but you have to be tough to block. You know, it's a weird skill set. But those are also the traits that you want to develop in players is if they're athletic,

they're big and they're tough. That's what every football coach wants in the world. So it's an understanding of how a guy fits on a team. I think a guy's pigeonhole guy for better for worse and go. It's the idealized comparison that we talk about. Oh, he's the one outlier that can do this. It's sometimes they have to understand. It's like, hey,

this is going to take a while, but shit, like these traits. And look at these flashes of this guy in training camp. I remember my friend from the Packers sent me a clips of Devante Adams his first year. And it was like, you know, who barely played by the way. Barely played. And then all of a sudden he would send me a clips because I was going to draft him in fantasy.

And he sent me a clip and he goes, he's going to be pretty good, dude. And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll take a chance on him. I still have them in my keeper league. But it's like, you know, that is what like, that's a development. It's you grate to the flash a little bit. And then you're trying to work on consistency. And then it's making those flash plays eight out of 10 times as opposed to four out of ten times. as opposed to four out of ten times.

That is what development is. And I think that's a perfect example. Devante Adams is another good one because if you look at Green Bay, it's the same kind of idea, right? It's funny, it's not an accident that the teams that have developed players, I was looking today at the players taken in the fourth rounder later

between 2010 and 2020, ranked by Career AV on Pro Football Reference. It is loaded with Seahawks and Packers. and there's a lot of Ravens in there. And there's some Steelers in there. Because these are guys, these are teams that don't sign free agents. So because they don't sign free agents, they have to be good at this. They have to be good at it.

But like you said, they don't block guys' paths to improvement and opportunity. I think a perfect example, you mentioned to Vante Adams. Remember talking to David Bakhtiari after his rookie year. And he was drafted in the fourth row pick. Yeah, I was going to say. Another way you're out pick. And he was drafted in the fourth round pick. And he was drafted in the fourth.

fourth round, he was about $2.95 when he got to training camp at 6-4, whatever he is. Not big enough to play offensive tackle at a high level in the NFL. So he said, in his mind, it's like, all right, he had a player development plan for himself. It's like, I'm going to play right tackle my rookie year. That's going to be my goal. I'm going to try to win the job at right tackle. I think I can do that. Brian Bologetaires is ACL. He's now, that entire process is accelerated. He's thrown into the left tackle spot. He's fine, but he wasn't great. He was undersized. He had a lot of stuff to work on. He puts on 15, 20 pounds. I remember he told me, I said in that year, he said, I was in the neighborhood of 300. Now we're married with like a four-bedroom house, me in 300 pounds.

That was his second year. And he, that's great. But that was developed. He stepped into that. And his path to that job was not blocked by anybody. He was a fourth round pick. They said, all right, let's let the guy learn. Let's let him take the punches and we'll figure this out.

Adams is the same way. I mean, this is a guy that had 38 receptions for 446 yards as a rookie because they just threw them out there and said, you're going to play a little bit of a role. You'll come along slowly. And they've done that with so many players at so many positions because they let those guys come along on those timelines and they ended up getting rewarded for it. So I think it has to be an organizational mindset that you're going to do this. I think the teams that have been best at doing it recently, the teams we mentioned,

and I think Indianapolis is another really good example. Like when they're talking about guys and you and you're having conversations with people about that team, they'll say, you know, we're excited about this so-and-so fifth round pick. It's like, oh, really, man? Like, you're going to try to sell me on this guy. But in actuality, they get something out of those guys. And that, Kari Willis from year one to year two and what he was able to do. They consistently are able to do that because they believe in it.

And I think that being a team that really builds through the draft maybe forces you to believe in it. But I do think that those two things fuel one another. Well, that's like even the Rams defense ascending. It's because they hit on some late round guys. Yeah. It's just like, that wasn't even development though. That's like this needs to work out or we're fucked.

Yeah. And it did. It was like, oh, my God. I know. I know. And they had a six round safety starting week one. I remember just being like, they're taking. a chance here.

And that's actually one of the reasons I watched them. And I was like, that was week two. They played the Eagles. I was like, oh, hey, this might be an interesting defense to watch this year. But that, but hitting on those guys, it's just huge. What kind of gets me sometimes is there are some outstanding coaches in the NFL, but there's a lot of bad coaches and, and or just average coaches, just run on the mill guys. It is what it is.

That's any industry. And I, I just think sometimes we, we bet too much on a coach saying that they're a developmental guy and going like. Like, yeah, you know, develop him because they did it one time because the guy was a freak of nature. And but also just that we, I think sometimes we get caught up that the coach, the assistant coach that we like is going to be there for three years or four years. These coaches leave every year. So it's like I think sometimes we, the personnel departments get swayed from what the coaches want. You know, you got to throw them a bone if you take control of the drafting and everything.

But sometimes with these coaches, it's just like, you're going to be gone in nine months, kid chasing the next job. like why should I draft the guy you wanted to draft? Let's just draft for traits. And that's where the Packers have done. They have also a continuity for a long time. That really, really, really does help. Even if the coaches might not be the greatest in the world, everyone communicating, speaking the same language, looking for the same things.

There is a benefit to that. That's when, and that's the same thing with Baltimore and Pittsburgh. It means those guys have been there forever. New England is the same way. Forever. And everyone speaks the same language. It's just like there are everybody, when I say this guy's a six or this guy's

above average. Everyone knows what that means. It's like, okay, got it, got it. This guy is this. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Everyone's on the same scale. You know, sometimes when you're, you're talking about a guy, my good could be different than someone else is good.

And that could really throw you for a loop sometimes. Guy could say everybody's good. We had a coach and assistant coach in Atlanta that when he graded all of his players, our scale there, basically if you're a 7-0 or better, you're, your pro bowl player, essentially. And for his players, you know, he gave one guy who obviously was a pro bowl player, like, you know, a high grade, but then you gave like two of the backups, like a seven o or better. And it was just like, oh my God, you don't even know what you're doing.

But that actually matters though because it's like, hey, if you guys, if you think this guy's good enough for us to win that we have an issue. Because now we got a real, you know, like what, what is your parameter? Where is your scale at? And speaking everybody, every silo in the building, you know, speaking that same language and putting it every, everybody's saying the same things and seeing the same things. It's really hard. We're all human beings.

but at least trying to, that actually matters a ton. And that helps with development. Because also you get a scout that goes, hey, we really like this guy, talks to meets with the position coach. You know, he might be the cross track scout with, you know, D-line. He meets with the D-line coach. And he's just like, hey, I really like this guy. He's like a fifth, six round type.

But, you know, he has some character stuff. He's going to need hard coaching. You might take that guy. The position coach now knows. And then they work with, you know, they have a player development guy. All these NFL teams have a player development guy. Hey, if they move here, they're going to help you find a house. They're going to help, you know, if you need a car, if your wife's looking for work,

they're going to help put you in touch with that. That's what a lot of these teams have now. And all of a sudden, you put a plan together. That's what good teams do, good organizations do from the scout, the college director talking to the scout, like they put a plan together, communicating with the GM. Then all of a sudden, they're talking to position coach, the coordinator, the head coach. They all have a feel. A guy might be a bad character guy, might have a work ethic issue.

Or on the flip side, totally raw, barely knows how to play football, something of that sort. But as long as the patient. and the timeline is everybody's consistent with it. Those things sometimes work out. It's just sometimes somebody can get antsy. Usually the position coach who all of a sudden just goes, why can't he play? It's like, hey, we're halfway through training camp. This guy's played 14 college games in his career around week three of preseason.

And like, come on, chill out a little bit. Like before you start, the guy can't play, can't play football. Yeah, he's a six round pick dude. Like, you know, it's just, it's funny how just coaches it's just you get into it. Awesome, that plan goes out the window. But the good coaches stay on the plan. It's all about consistency. Well, that's the problem is we talk about this and you want to have it be this idealized version of it.

I think a really good example is a team like Arizona, right? So you have somebody in Steve Kheim who they had a couple losing seasons, their draft number one overall. There's a timeline there. They know they need to get something done. You know, that's how you get, let's trade for Rodney Hudson, let's sign Malcolm Butler, let's sign JJ Watt, let's go get A.J. Green. It's immediate fixes because, like, we're trying to do this. right now. And I think that's the concern. And, you know, there's no one way to do it. But I just

think that development side of it is something we don't really talk about very often. And it's kind of nebulous. And I think that because it's not on display and we don't really understand it. And it's often not associated with the big name players. It's associated with guys near the end of the roster. I think another really good example, like the Browns trading for Wyatt Teller and Wyatt Teller becoming an all pro level player after he was available for next to nothing when he was drafted in the think, believe in the fifth round, that happens. And I think that when you talk to personnel people, they get so excited about this guy we got as a college free agent, this guy I drafted in the sixth round or whatever.

And you kind of roll your eyes and it's like, no, because that's how you have to do this. It may not be exciting and we may not want to talk about it. But that's how the smart teams, I don't want to say smart teams, but that's how the teams that often get value and often think about value, that's those are the bets they make and those the investments they make. It's about the investments that you're making. And I think that there are some teams to do that really well.

And some teams who just understand, I don't have the security, I don't have the time, I don't have the patience to worry about those sorts of investments. Yeah, and that's why those really pass the fourth round when you get to the fifth, six, seven. That's so funny what you said about. Oh, yeah, we're excited about this undrafted free agent.

Like the sixth and seventh round picks almost turn into like no one cares about. It's like once you get past the fifth round, it's like no one cares about the six and seventh round picture. All we care about is on draft of free agents because I know the scouts and stuff have to work on them. You're right. That turns into almost like college recruiting because it's like a guy might be

deciding between two teams. One bonus might be a couple thousand more. But it's like your opportunity is better here so that can turn into a whole thing. But that, no, you're completely right about. Yeah, it might be silly to be like, wow, you're really excited about that receiver that caught 480 yards last year in his senior year. But it's like, dude, he can take the top off. We just got our, we just got our burner on the cheap.

And also you're like, we can develop him in this, this and this. He could be our returner. Holy crap. You have to. You have to look at the silver linings no matter what the detriment is because it's just it's just one of those things too. It's like if you guys, that guy comes in day one, you're like, yeah, he sucks. Who cares?

Like he's dead. The guy could like the guy, we were like I said, we're all human. We could have just those pre connotations about some of these players and go, oh, he sucks. He can't play. And the guy doesn't get a chance because he doesn't get any reps. he doesn't get any extra practice. Unless the guy takes it on his own and does all the extra work and it's just a stud, some of these coaches are just blind to it because they're just like they don't have the time

or the mental energy or whatever excuses they may have. And some of them are valid to take the time with those kind of guys. So that's what you're saying too. It's like sometimes you get excited about those guys, but you have to because otherwise those guys are just another body. And it's so much fun when I was coaching especially is seeing those undrafted free agents or a guy like Jalen Rashard. That might be one of my favorite ones. with the Raiders because he was a rookie mini camp guy not even just undrafted free agent he was a tryout guy tryout guy got earned a contract to go to training camp just as undrafted free agent

no bonus um we had to cut another guy to sign him gets there day one i would say like day like three maybe once we starting against blitzes also he was pretty good in protection he was listening he wasn't making any mistakes his eyes were good and we're like hey you know this guy's pretty shifty out of the backfield all right let's see what more he can chew and then we wanted like BPU. He just kept owning it. He was making a play a day. He was just standing out one day, one day at a time, one day at a time. You have to make guys notice you a little bit to get the development. So that's where you kind of talk, you kind of talk out both sides of your mouth. It's like, yeah, we want to develop guys. Some guy, like I said, you have to be a pro and you have to own it. You have to take ownership in your own development as well. But that's what's so fun is a guy like Jalen who wanted to be coached, got the coaching. Bernie Parmaly, who was our running back coach and my dad with Offensive Line and Tim Holder, our assistant offensive line coach. They really worked with a guy like that and just talking to him because the guy was asking questions about protection. He realized my way to get on this roster is return ponds and be good in protection. And guess what he did?

He returned ponds and he was good in protection. Didn't do either of those things in college. But that's like one of those things. You just see a guy that wants it and you're like, okay, I want to develop this guy. But not every guy does that. So sometimes that's what's hard. It's like you have, it's a little bit of, it's a little, it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle.

You're putting the different puzzle pieces together and trying to see how it fits. And the Raiders are, it's a really good example because look at what they just did. They cut Arden Key and Maurice Horst two weeks after signing guys to free agent contracts because they just needed answers there. It's like, well, we don't have time for this. I'm sorry about that. And I understand that if those guys don't work out, you need solutions and all that other stuff. But that just shows the tradeoff. It's like if you want, you can pay for it, but you're paying up for it.

And there are benefits to being able to develop those guys. I mean, it just, there are teams that consistently are going to churn out the Ryan Jensen's and the Zadarius Smiths and the Micahides of the world. They're going to let those guys walk in free agency. They're going to get a comp pick and then they're going to do it all over again. And you have to buy into that process. But if you buy into that process, there are rewards. It can be fruitful for you. But they put themselves in a position, just like you said, to take, if you do it for a year after year after year, then Zadarius Smith could be a

fifth round pick and your backup or your third string guy. Yeah. He's not having to start. That's if you just do it year after year after year, you don't have to start a six round safety, you know, like you don't have to do it. But sometimes you get lucky and they can play. But then sometimes it's like that, then you can stick to those plans. And it's just like confirming what you're saying.

It's just if you stick to the plan and consistent with it, then it's just the dividends that get paid off of it, not only just with the draft picks, but just lifting the whole tide of the ship, you know, tides for the ship to raise up for the entire team. Like, that is the benefit of all this. Just consistency, consistency, consistency with these guys. If you do that, you're just, you're never in a bad spot. You're never doing anything out of desperation because it's like, oh, that guy can do this.

Like, we've been grooming him to do this for the last three years. And I think that's part of it is just this long view that the really well run teams, the considered teams, the patient teams, when they have this long view, there are rewards to be had with the long view. And that is our half hour screen. about player development. And now it could benefit teams. All right, buddy, always get to chat with you.

We're keeping this a little bit short because you and I have a lot of prep to do for the live draft show that we are doing a week from tomorrow. You and I will be both be in Chicago. We are going to be coming to you guys live after the 15th or so pick in the middle of the first round. So we'll recap everything that's happened. We'll react to some of the picks as they happen. I'm very excited about it. I hope you guys will join us. I cannot wait to do something in person for the first time.

over a year. It's going to be great. So until then, though, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Also, please subscribe to the athletic. Check out Dane Brooker's draft guide there. Dane will also be joining us that night along with Lindsay Jones. So the whole crew, the whole draft crew will be together. Friday, we'll be doing a mock draft with the writers for the teams in the top 10. So we will have 10 guests on Friday's show, which is, way too much for me to negotiate and to juggle, but we're going to try to figure it out.

Really appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.