couchscout
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I promised a few people I would explain a few basic scouting rules last week, so here ya go.
1. The number 1, by far and away most important, and by far away most ignored rule of scouting around here is: Do no tie your ego to your player evaluations.
Simply put, you're gonna be wrong, probably a lot. Many people cannot handle being wrong, they take it like a personal attack if someone proves them wrong. A quick example, when I was doing my off season evaluations last season, my initial eval of Roy Williams was...less than glowing. I wrote "Williams is a completely worthless player at WR, not only does he have no impact on the defense, but he drops the ball far too often for a starting WR." As the off season wore on, a few people around here said a few things that made me want to take another look. A few days later I was doing an eval of another player and I noticed something I had not caught on to previously. This caused me to go back and completely redo my Williams eval. I made a post on here a few days later about the impact Roy was having on defenses. I did not allow the fact that I had previously said he had no impact on defenses to cloud my judgement or reason. I was wrong, it happens.
2. You have to do every last thing possible to understand both the offensive play and defensive play call, and the assignments of all players on both teams before you can really eval even one player on one play.
This happens so often around here it actually makes me physically tired. Someone will hop on and start spouting off at the mouth about one play where a player appeared to get beat, and therefor that player sucks. When in reality that player was trying to cover a mistake a different player made, or was doing his assignment correctly but the offense had the perfect play call on to beat that type of defense, etc. Your average fan would have a hard time discerning a base cover 2, from a Tampa 2, or a simple cover 3 or cover 4. Your more hardcore fan who watches a lot of Playbook or NFL Matchup would be able to recognize most of those but would be stumped when asked to describe the responsibility of all 11 players on even a simple zone blitz. NFL defenses are extremely complex, sometimes it takes 6-10 views of one play over and over just to figure out exactly what the defense is trying to do. This is what makes "couch scouting" so difficult, you can only really evaluate 15 or so plays a game. Only the ones where they show the all22 camera, or show a half dozen replays of from a half dozen different cameras. So, next time you see Newman "get beat" on a 5 yard out route, or Doug Free just let his man run right past him to the QB, look at the rest of the play, 10 times if need be, and determine what exactly that players assignment was. Otherwise, for people in the know, you come off as a whiny kid.
3. The other team has good players too.
Another common mistake. "A. Johnson smoked Newman allll day, Newman sucks!!" Nevermind the fact that A. Johnson is an incredible player, that doesn't matter. What matters is that our CBs couldn't contain him one on one. You must understand that the NFL is full of extremely talented and athletic people. The other team is gonna have players that are better than your teams players, period. Sometimes the coach uses the old "let him get his" strategy. "We know we can't stop him one on one, and if we divert too much attention to him, his teammates will kill us. So let's just single him up, let him get what he's gonna get, and shut down everyone else." This actually happens a lot more than people think. When evaluating a player, keep in mind who he is facing. You can't have steak on every plate. /Mickey
4. Scheme is everything!
This one is more for evaluating players you'd like to bring on to the team than for evaluating current players. Every team has their schemes, some teams drop their DE's in coverage a lot, so they need more athletic guys. Some rely on the blitz to get pressure on the QB, so they need good blitzing LBs, some teams 2 gap, some 1 gap, etc. When you're watching a college football game trying to find players you'd like to see your team draft, or watching highlights of a player they just drafted. You must keep in mind differences in scheme. Bobby Carpenter is a great example of this. He was an attacking player in college. They never asked him to read and react, shed blocks and flow to the ball, or really anything a traditional LB does. He blitzed...a lot. They put him at DE on pass downs, if he happened to tackle the RB on the way to the QB, great. He came into the NFL on a team that asked their LBs to play the run first, to stack and shed, and play with outstanding discipline. He was not a fit here, and I believe it messed up his confidence. I still think he'd be a good player for the Eagles who would turn him loose at the QB the vast majority of the time. So this spring when you're watching highlights of every player under the sun, pay attention to his assignments, and what type of player he is. Just because he's a great player, doesn't mean he would fit with your team.
Real quick, just wanted to note that I don't think Newman is the best CB in the NFL or anything, he just happened to be the easiest example. Also, I should be around most of the day if anyone has any specific questions.
1. The number 1, by far and away most important, and by far away most ignored rule of scouting around here is: Do no tie your ego to your player evaluations.
Simply put, you're gonna be wrong, probably a lot. Many people cannot handle being wrong, they take it like a personal attack if someone proves them wrong. A quick example, when I was doing my off season evaluations last season, my initial eval of Roy Williams was...less than glowing. I wrote "Williams is a completely worthless player at WR, not only does he have no impact on the defense, but he drops the ball far too often for a starting WR." As the off season wore on, a few people around here said a few things that made me want to take another look. A few days later I was doing an eval of another player and I noticed something I had not caught on to previously. This caused me to go back and completely redo my Williams eval. I made a post on here a few days later about the impact Roy was having on defenses. I did not allow the fact that I had previously said he had no impact on defenses to cloud my judgement or reason. I was wrong, it happens.
2. You have to do every last thing possible to understand both the offensive play and defensive play call, and the assignments of all players on both teams before you can really eval even one player on one play.
This happens so often around here it actually makes me physically tired. Someone will hop on and start spouting off at the mouth about one play where a player appeared to get beat, and therefor that player sucks. When in reality that player was trying to cover a mistake a different player made, or was doing his assignment correctly but the offense had the perfect play call on to beat that type of defense, etc. Your average fan would have a hard time discerning a base cover 2, from a Tampa 2, or a simple cover 3 or cover 4. Your more hardcore fan who watches a lot of Playbook or NFL Matchup would be able to recognize most of those but would be stumped when asked to describe the responsibility of all 11 players on even a simple zone blitz. NFL defenses are extremely complex, sometimes it takes 6-10 views of one play over and over just to figure out exactly what the defense is trying to do. This is what makes "couch scouting" so difficult, you can only really evaluate 15 or so plays a game. Only the ones where they show the all22 camera, or show a half dozen replays of from a half dozen different cameras. So, next time you see Newman "get beat" on a 5 yard out route, or Doug Free just let his man run right past him to the QB, look at the rest of the play, 10 times if need be, and determine what exactly that players assignment was. Otherwise, for people in the know, you come off as a whiny kid.
3. The other team has good players too.
Another common mistake. "A. Johnson smoked Newman allll day, Newman sucks!!" Nevermind the fact that A. Johnson is an incredible player, that doesn't matter. What matters is that our CBs couldn't contain him one on one. You must understand that the NFL is full of extremely talented and athletic people. The other team is gonna have players that are better than your teams players, period. Sometimes the coach uses the old "let him get his" strategy. "We know we can't stop him one on one, and if we divert too much attention to him, his teammates will kill us. So let's just single him up, let him get what he's gonna get, and shut down everyone else." This actually happens a lot more than people think. When evaluating a player, keep in mind who he is facing. You can't have steak on every plate. /Mickey
4. Scheme is everything!
This one is more for evaluating players you'd like to bring on to the team than for evaluating current players. Every team has their schemes, some teams drop their DE's in coverage a lot, so they need more athletic guys. Some rely on the blitz to get pressure on the QB, so they need good blitzing LBs, some teams 2 gap, some 1 gap, etc. When you're watching a college football game trying to find players you'd like to see your team draft, or watching highlights of a player they just drafted. You must keep in mind differences in scheme. Bobby Carpenter is a great example of this. He was an attacking player in college. They never asked him to read and react, shed blocks and flow to the ball, or really anything a traditional LB does. He blitzed...a lot. They put him at DE on pass downs, if he happened to tackle the RB on the way to the QB, great. He came into the NFL on a team that asked their LBs to play the run first, to stack and shed, and play with outstanding discipline. He was not a fit here, and I believe it messed up his confidence. I still think he'd be a good player for the Eagles who would turn him loose at the QB the vast majority of the time. So this spring when you're watching highlights of every player under the sun, pay attention to his assignments, and what type of player he is. Just because he's a great player, doesn't mean he would fit with your team.
Real quick, just wanted to note that I don't think Newman is the best CB in the NFL or anything, he just happened to be the easiest example. Also, I should be around most of the day if anyone has any specific questions.
