What Anonymous Scouts Had To Say About Five Cowboys Rookies

[TwoDeep3]

http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...-scouts-had-to-say-about-five-cowboys-rookies

Every year for the last 15 years, Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been polling personnel people before the draft. McGinn uses the results of those polls to rank draft prospects at their respective positions and spices up the rankings with comments from anonymous scouts. The comments from these scouts can be effusive in their praise for a prospect but can also be damning indictments of various aspects of a prospects game/personality/traits. Taken by themselves, they likely provide a distorted picture of a prospect, but taken together, they begin to form a picture of what the scouting community may have thought about a given prospect. With the draft firmly behind us, we revisit what McGinn and the scouts had to say about the players the Cowboys drafted. And we kick things off by looking at what McGinn wrote about Ezekiel Elliott in his introduction to the 2016 running backs.

Several personnel people said Elliott was the best back to enter the NFL since...

 

[JoeKing]

IMO, not all scouts are worth a damn. The favorable or unfavorable stamp loses legitamacy when the name attached to that stamp is not known. It's good to see positive things being said about our draftees but it matters to me who is saying them. You can paint whatever picture you want about a particular player if you are going to just cherry pick statements from various scouts without attaching names.

 

[VACowboy]

I love that stuff. Thanks for the post!

 

[LocimusPrime]

Thanks for the read, it was informative.

• Ouch after reading that, I don't feel too positive about the Cowboys picks. The defensive picks seem to be junky ones according to scouts #2 and #3. They weren't too high on jaylon, Collins, or the corner we took.
• If scout # 3 ends up right about our picks, we need to fire the director of scouts and hire #3

 

[YosemiteSam]

IMO, not all scouts are worth a damn. The favorable or unfavorable stamp loses legitamacy when the name attached to that stamp is not known. It's good to see positive things being said about our draftees but it matters to me who is saying them. You can paint whatever picture you want about a particular player if you are going to just cherry pick statements from various scouts without attaching names.

I agree and can sum that up in one word that proves my point. Broaddus

 

[TwoDeep3]

IMO, not all scouts are worth a damn. The favorable or unfavorable stamp loses legitamacy when the name attached to that stamp is not known. It's good to see positive things being said about our draftees but it matters to me who is saying them. You can paint whatever picture you want about a particular player if you are going to just cherry pick statements from various scouts without attaching names.

I understand your quandary. However, is there one person on this board qualified to know what scouts are good and what scouts are bad? Do any of the people that post here know every plyare every scout has enrosed or given the thumbs down, and how that player worked out.?

Further, since each team has a different surrounding cast of player, and a different coaching staff and front office, can you say with certainty the scouts recommendations were accepted by the team?

Or even more specific, can you say with any certainty the player taken was in the best spot to flourish, and thus the scouts recommendation of the player was good, but the team did a poor job of exploiting the skill set the player had.

If Montana had gone to the Raiders with their deep pass philosophy, would he have been as good as he was since he was not known for having a strong arm?

And had that transpired, would you have claimed the scout was crap because Montana wasn't greatness, but a really smart player who didn't win Superbowls?

Sorry, I find it difficult to believe some of the doubting going on about scouts, coaches, players even, and to go so far as journalists in regard to sports since the lion's share of us have never played, coached, been in the front office, or even been paid writers for this or any sport.

 

[zekecowboy]

http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...-scouts-had-to-say-about-five-cowboys-rookies

Every year for the last 15 years, Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been polling personnel people before the draft. McGinn uses the results of those polls to rank draft prospects at their respective positions and spices up the rankings with comments from anonymous scouts. The comments from these scouts can be effusive in their praise for a prospect but can also be damning indictments of various aspects of a prospects game/personality/traits. Taken by themselves, they likely provide a distorted picture of a prospect, but taken together, they begin to form a picture of what the scouting community may have thought about a given prospect. With the draft firmly behind us, we revisit what McGinn and the scouts had to say about the players the Cowboys drafted. And we kick things off by looking at what McGinn wrote about Ezekiel Elliott in his introduction to the 2016 running backs.

Several personnel people said Elliott was the best back to enter the NFL since...

Surprised a little bit about the comments on Jaylon Smith. Media has been spinning it as if he is a can't miss player as long as he gets the nerve regeneration.

 

[dallasdave]

Not a great write up by the scouts on our draft !!!!!

 

[Alexander]

Thanks for the read, it was informative.

• Ouch after reading that, I don't feel too positive about the Cowboys picks. The defensive picks seem to be junky ones according to scouts #2 and #3. They weren't too high on jaylon, Collins, or the corner we took.
• If scout # 3 ends up right about our picks, we need to fire the director of scouts and hire #3

The Jaylon Smith report was clouded by the one negative, which is honestly the only place I have read that Smith is dumb.

 

[dallasdave]

The Jaylon Smith report was clouded by the one negative, which is honestly the only place I have read that Smith is dumb.

I agree with that, and if he recovers the Cowboys got a top 5 player !!!

 

[JoeKing]

I understand your quandary. However, is there one person on this board qualified to know what scouts are good and what scouts are bad? Do any of the people that post here know every plyare every scout has enrosed or given the thumbs down, and how that player worked out.?

Further, since each team has a different surrounding cast of player, and a different coaching staff and front office, can you say with certainty the scouts recommendations were accepted by the team?

Or even more specific, can you say with any certainty the player taken was in the best spot to flourish, and thus the scouts recommendation of the player was good, but the team did a poor job of exploiting the skill set the player had.

If Montana had gone to the Raiders with their deep pass philosophy, would he have been as good as he was since he was not known for having a strong arm?

And had that transpired, would you have claimed the scout was crap because Montana wasn't greatness, but a really smart player who didn't win Superbowls?

Sorry, I find it difficult to believe some of the doubting going on about scouts, coaches, players even, and to go so far as journalists in regard to sports since the lion's share of us have never played, coached, been in the front office, or even been paid writers for this or any sport.

There is such a thing as fitting an individual's skill set to certain team's philosphy. This is why we don't see a quality QB like Montana being drafted by a team like the Raiders that clearly needs a QB with a strong arm.

Fitting skill set to team philosophy doesn't apply just to the QB postion, it applies to all positions. Another example of this is Randy Moss. When he was drafted my the Vikings, they used him in a heavy pass attack and it was largley effective at exploting his strengths. Then when he went to the Raiders they failed to use him this same way, resulting in his declining stats while there. Many folks claimed his declining stats were his fault but that was proven wrong when he went to the Patriots and reemerged as an elite WR when he was being utilized properly.

With all this said, it's getting away from the topic at hand... scouting. A scout can be judged as good or bad by the accuracy of their past reports. It's not hard to look at what any given scout had to say about any given player five years ago. The validity of the scouting jumps out at you when you go back and see which scouts were hitting the mark and which ones were not. One doesn't have to be a scout to judge a scout. The members of this board have the benefit of hindsight to see which scout's opinions matter.

It's not benefital to assume all scouts are cut from the same cloth and it's equally not benefital to assume a scouts opinion can't be accurately questioned by a member of this board given they have a record to go back on to judge how accurate their scouting has been in the past.

 

[Alexander]

It's not benefital to assume all scouts are cut from the same cloth and it's equally not benefital to assume a scouts opinion can't be accurately questioned by a member of this board given they have a record to go back on to judge how accurate their scouting has been in the past.

Just because a scout feels one way about a player does not mean the decision to draft always reflects that. They could be completely right and warn management not to take a player and they do it anyways. Conversely, they could completely miss on a player and it works out. It all depends on the level of communication and how the evaluations are weighed and measured, how much pull the coaches have etc.

I think most of the time, what we see as fans as "consensus" opinion probably reflects how most scouts think. Some are lazy, others are more demanding. And most of the time, their personal opinion gets lost in the shuffle unless they have earned that voice.

Scouts do the information gathering, but they are not always the ones who have the true voice when it comes down to making the decisions. Often personnel management and even coaches get their way above and outside what the scouts have to say.

 

[Howboutdemcowboys31]

Smith being dumb comments shocked me

 

[RS12]

It only matters what the team you are playing for scouts say about you. They are the ones you are paying to be right.

 

[CherBoyWade]

For what it's worth I asked ND writer Eric Hansen about the Jaylon comments. His response: "Old, irrelevant story that has no basis in reality."

 

[erod]

Just proves that scouts rarely agree on players, and it's a crapshoot.

These same guys thought Mo Claiborne was top ten worthy. And countless others.

 

[speedkilz88]

For what it's worth I asked ND writer Eric Hansen about the Jaylon comments. His response: "Old, irrelevant story that has no basis in reality."

I'm pretty sure Jaylon called the defense there.

 

[MagicMan]

There's a reason these "scouts" don't want their name mentioned. No accountability for their guesses. Reminds me of CZ.

In any event, what concerns me about the Prescott pick is that he may have the goods for the NFL, but this is the wrong team for him-----actually the wrong coaching staff. He will get no favors working with Wilson or Garrett, who have a history of not preparing QBs for the NFL. Dallas needed a NFL ready QB with natural abilities and smarts-----Romo has had to depend on these in Dallas. Dak would have been much better off working under coaches like Kubiak or even Arians. He really needs a mentor and teacher to get him ready.

Personally, I can't help but think he is a notch above Tim Tebow------and at best, will be a journey man backup in the NFL. Hey, it beats looking for a job at Lowe's. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But the pay scale is a bit less.

 

[LocimusPrime]

Just because a scout feels one way about a player does not mean the decision to draft always reflects that. They could be completely right and warn management not to take a player and they do it anyways. Conversely, they could completely miss on a player and it works out. It all depends on the level of communication and how the evaluations are weighed and measured, how much pull the coaches have etc.

I think most of the time, what we see as fans as "consensus" opinion probably reflects how most scouts think. Some are lazy, others are more demanding. And most of the time, their personal opinion gets lost in the shuffle unless they have earned that voice.

Scouts do the information gathering, but they are not always the ones who have the true voice when it comes down to making the decisions. Often personnel management and even coaches get their way above and outside what the scouts have to say.

Great points. Now i'm concerned with jaylon's low wonderlic score

 

[JohnsKey19]

Any truth to the rumor that Scout #3 is employed by the Dallas Cowboys?