Plankton
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http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...ation-wars-how-teams-get-the-real-draft-intel
The secretary's name and place of employment remain a secret for Greg Gabriel even to this day, seven years after he departed his last NFL job as the director of college scouting for the Chicago Bears.
During the draft's most intense moments, his valuable source was nestled inside the office of a college head coach. This was someone Gabriel got to know over his early years in the 1980s as a Buffalo-based Midwest scout for the Bills, National Football Scouting and, later, the New York Giants, where Gabriel was responsible for everything from Syracuse, New York, all the way to Nebraska, from Kentucky to the U.S./Canada border.
She would not give him groundbreaking information pertaining to on-field performance. An NFL scout can determine system fit, game speed, practical strength and intensity with startling accuracy. But she could point him in the right direction when it came to a few central questions that plague many in the business at this time of year:
Is he really a good kid? What is he like when no one important is around? Is there something he's hiding from us?
"She was unnnnn-believable at supplying that kind of information," Gabriel told me. "She was right on all the time. I would ask her, 'What about this guy?' And she'd say 'Don't touch him!'
"You find out over time if the information is valuable."
On Thursday, NFL teams will begin a process that'll result in the selection of 253 collegiate players -- the culmination of years of research, interviews, tape study and evaluation. But a closer look at selection habits over the last decade reveals a bias at the core of Gabriel's story: Some clubs develop a sweet spot or infallible source at certain universities and are able to trust the information far more than the banalities spewed by most college head coaches looking to ratchet up their draft stats. Most of those coaches are not particularly worried about saddling an NFL franchise with the next headcase, problem child or paper tiger.
The result? A higher number of players from a particular college program matriculating to your favorite pro team. With facts and alternative facts polluting the scouting landscape, NFL clubs often use the trust factor to break ties on the draft board and populate their roster. Investigating the roots of their decision-making process -- and the decision makers themselves -- can often lead to a better understanding of who they will draft.
"The draft is buyer beware," one AFC general manager told me. "We've had schools that we simply won't draft players from. At all. Just because we can't get good information. The most important thing is information, so if you can feel really good about getting accurate information from a school, you feel good about drafting that player."
The secretary's name and place of employment remain a secret for Greg Gabriel even to this day, seven years after he departed his last NFL job as the director of college scouting for the Chicago Bears.
During the draft's most intense moments, his valuable source was nestled inside the office of a college head coach. This was someone Gabriel got to know over his early years in the 1980s as a Buffalo-based Midwest scout for the Bills, National Football Scouting and, later, the New York Giants, where Gabriel was responsible for everything from Syracuse, New York, all the way to Nebraska, from Kentucky to the U.S./Canada border.
She would not give him groundbreaking information pertaining to on-field performance. An NFL scout can determine system fit, game speed, practical strength and intensity with startling accuracy. But she could point him in the right direction when it came to a few central questions that plague many in the business at this time of year:
Is he really a good kid? What is he like when no one important is around? Is there something he's hiding from us?
"She was unnnnn-believable at supplying that kind of information," Gabriel told me. "She was right on all the time. I would ask her, 'What about this guy?' And she'd say 'Don't touch him!'
"You find out over time if the information is valuable."
On Thursday, NFL teams will begin a process that'll result in the selection of 253 collegiate players -- the culmination of years of research, interviews, tape study and evaluation. But a closer look at selection habits over the last decade reveals a bias at the core of Gabriel's story: Some clubs develop a sweet spot or infallible source at certain universities and are able to trust the information far more than the banalities spewed by most college head coaches looking to ratchet up their draft stats. Most of those coaches are not particularly worried about saddling an NFL franchise with the next headcase, problem child or paper tiger.
The result? A higher number of players from a particular college program matriculating to your favorite pro team. With facts and alternative facts polluting the scouting landscape, NFL clubs often use the trust factor to break ties on the draft board and populate their roster. Investigating the roots of their decision-making process -- and the decision makers themselves -- can often lead to a better understanding of who they will draft.
"The draft is buyer beware," one AFC general manager told me. "We've had schools that we simply won't draft players from. At all. Just because we can't get good information. The most important thing is information, so if you can feel really good about getting accurate information from a school, you feel good about drafting that player."
