Welcome to draft week, the most important time in the interminable seven-month NFL offseason. The draft allows clubs to separate themselves as they architect the infrastructure of their teams for the future.
The vast majority of players selected this week will not be major contributors anytime soon or displace established veterans; that is not the point of the draft. The plan is that they will become core performers in the coming 2-3 years, then becoming the established veterans of the future (to be eventually displaced by future draft picks). This is the vicious cycle of the NFL career: rising young players who replace experienced veterans will eventually become experienced veterans to be replaced by rising young players.
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Asking the questions
As vice president of the Packers for many years, I stayed in my lane during the draft, letting our talented evaluators (four of them are now NFL general managers, including one — John Dorsey — with the 1st and 4th picks of this week’s draft) do what they do. I did, however, ask the questions that our evaluators may not have been asking in their scouting.
For example, I knew that the chances of a player selected in the top 3-4 rounds, no matter the position, had virtually no chance of being released. Thus, I would always want to know which of our current players was going to lose his job due to that pick. I would simply ask: “Who is he going to push off the roster?” as I needed to be especially cognizant if the player to eventually be cut had any guaranteed money. What many don’t realize about NFL draft war rooms is that players are not only added but others are also functionally released simultaneously based on those additions.
I would also ask questions, as loudly as I could, about two recurrent risks: character and injury. As for character, I was not naïve; I understand that talent rules. My concern, though, was mitigating risk having learned through experience that bad character can poison entire position groups (as can good character elevate those groups). Character concerns are never solved with he’ll change once he gets here; that is a wish, not a plan. Experience has taught us that people tend not to change.
As for injury, players are rated 1 (completely clean) to 4 (medical reject). Team doctors and medical staff are critical personnel in draft rooms, with medical histories at the ready on every prospect. And again, experience has taught us that injured players at one level usually become injured players at the next level.
Trust the Board
The mantra of the Packers war room, and of those around the league, has been simple: trust the Board.The Board is the product of thousands of man-hours of preparation. Set up with players rated as first round, second round and so on, the preparation of the Board allows the weekend to unfold with minimal tension: we always said we can sit back and let the Board “talk to us.”
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In Green Bay the roles in the war room were clear: the personnel staff works the phones on trades and information and absent a trade, the general manager picks the player at the top of the Board, regardless of position. I have heard horror stories from other teams where a decision maker — usually an owner but sometimes a coach or general manager — jumps the Board, relying on a gut feeling about a player other than the one the Board suggested. I can tell you this—nothing deflates a scouting staff more than someone using intuition over seven months of collective scouting. Leaders lose all trust in that moment of jumping the Board.
Now to the ultimate trust the Board moment…
Drafting Aaron
We owned the 24th pick in the 2005 draft and had 20 players rated as first-rounders, including two quarterbacks (Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers). After Smith was selected with the first pick, we watched the round unfold as two concurrent themes were happening: 1) all the players we were targeting were being picked (except one), and 2) teams were all passing on Rodgers despite, as we found out later, assurances given to him that they would select him.
As our pick drew near with Aaron’s name the only one left above that first-round line, there was palpable energy growing in the room, some of it negative. Of course, we had Brett Favre, the most durable quarterback in the history of the sport, yet the Board was telling us to draft that same position. There was some combustion building within our coaching staff sitting to my right, as they sensed we might use our first round pick on a player that could not help them this year, maybe not next year, maybe never. They wanted a player who could help us short term, long term be damned.
The personnel staff sitting to my left also saw what was happening and stayed calm. The room grew silent. A minute or so after we were on the clock (it was 15 minutes for each first-round pick then), general manager Ted Thompson asked me to call Rodgers’ agent, Mike Sullivan — Mike and I had a close relationship — and just keep him on the phone while we decide. I called the number I had and got a terse“Hello…”
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“Mike?”
“No, this is Aaron.”
I felt for so bad for Aaron, who had been sitting there for five hours (the caterers were stacking chairs around him), and now I had to keep him waiting longer. I cringed and said:
“Hi Aaron, it’s Andrew Brandt with the Green Bay Packers. Can I talk to Mike?”
As I watched Mike on television talking to me, I could not tell him that we were taking Aaron, as Ted wanted to see if an enticing trade offer would come while we were on the clock. The room was dead silent with all eyes on Ted, and on me talking to Mike, who was on television talking to me. And for those 12 minutes, which seemed like 12 hours, it was crickets; the phone never rang. Finally, Ted gave me the go-ahead to tell Mike we were taking Aaron.
The room realized the magnitude of what we just did, opting out of immediate needs towards the future. I soon took a call from Brett’s agent, Bus Cook, and explained the long-term nature of taking Aaron. And we heard booing from the draft party going on below us at Lambeau Field.
To this day I think about how the NFL balance of power could be different if 1) one of the teams that told Aaron they would draft him had actually done so, or 2) an attractive trade offer came in while we were on the clock during those excruciating 12 minutes.
How did Aaron Rodgers become a Packer? Actually, it was pretty simple: we trusted the Board, and best player in the sport fell into our lap.
Five other nuggets from behind the curtain of NFL offices:
*Clichés from coaches and general managers abound this week, especially after making their selections: everyone drafted was rated higher than he went, and the team “can’t believe he was there.” I would love a GM to be honest and say something like “We actually wanted a couple of other guys but they were gone; this guy will do.”
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*As a former agent, I feel for agents since they are whom players and their families often take out their anger at not being drafted higher. Managing expectations and emotions is the key for agents this weekend.
*Drafted players must sign four-year fixed and reasonable contracts with no opportunity to renegotiate until after their third year. From a financial perspective, the draft is the gift that keeps on giving.
*It is on the third day of the draft — rounds 4-7 and the undrafted signings — when teams truly separate themselves. A common denominator to any successful NFL team is having productive players picked in later rounds.
*Speaking of undrafted free agents, the busiest part of draft weekend is right after the draft ends when teams and agents scramble to sign hundreds of players within minutes, if not seconds. I’ll leave you with my three favorite stories inside the tumult of the undrafted signing frenzy: I once agreed on a contract with a player—he did not have an agent—yet noticed his name on the lists of undrafted players with two other teams! I called the player, who said matter-of-factly “I thought I could sign with all three and then pick one later.” I told him he had to pick one now. (He went to the Cardinals and lasted a week with the team.)
*Amidst the chaos immediately following the 2003 draft one of our scouts yelled out, “Anyone want to sign this quarterback named Tony Romo? He’s from Wisconsin.” Crickets.
*And my favorite story: I once told a player we would sign him for a $500 bonus. His response: “I only have about $100 now, but I can get you the rest next week.”
“No,” I answered, “We pay you.”
(AP Photo/Adam Rountree)
