Do scouts really know what they're talking about?

[Phillyboy57]

Scouts do get it right but they are human beings. When guys like Clowney come along they just love to drool over the potential he has because of his rare physical traits. Also what happens a lot is a team will either diminish or praise a guy just to get teams to jump to pick him or let a guy fall in the draft.

[Ice_Cold345]

Quote: Originally Posted by dsallupinyaarea

How could Bill Walsh have possibly known what grades other teams had on him? If even one team has a similar grade on him and jumps in round 1, you miss out on a HOF QB. I don't buy it. I think Walsh just got lucky. It's easy to go back in time and bend facts to fit a narrative.

You think teams don't talk to one another? GMs, scouts, etc. will talk with other team's personnel to keep a good friendship with one another. It's not like these guys are on an island.

[ImTellinTim]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ice_Cold345

You think teams don't talk to one another? GMs, scouts, etc. will talk with other team's personnel to keep a good friendship with one another. It's not like these guys are on an island.

They might talk to one another, but do you really think they sit around and share all their information?

[FaceMask]

Believe it or not, at the time, as crazy as it seems to us today, Joe Montana would've been a reach pick if he were drafted any higher back then. He had a number of magic moments at Notre Dame, and people remember those, I sure do. But people forget that overall Joe's play was iffy at best and by today's standards it's highly unlikely he would've even been brought in for a tryout. But being a Notre Dame QB back then garnered you a lot more respect than it does today and people were willing to take a look at him. Glad they did.

Joe wound up lucky going to a Coach in Bill Walsh who was willing to work with him, because although most of us know him as the GOAT today, at the time he was not ready to be an NFL starter, and had he gotten into a different situation he may have wound up becoming a footnote.

Everybody was worried that Joe's arm strength was a liability, and that his body was too frail. Nobody knew that Joe was fearless, willing to take big hits to make the right throw (and he took some whammies in his career), and had a legendary football IQ that allowed him to make lighting fast reads and outsmart defenses with precise timing instead of overpowering them with brute arm strength. There were games you'd watch him play and you'd just laugh and brace yourself because you knew somehow, no matter how behind the 49ers were, Joe was going to find a way to do it to your team.

[mercalnd]

Quote: Originally Posted by LowerWolf

One thing that's always baffled me though: Scouts tend to fall in love with the measurements (size, speed, etc.) and downplay what a player actually did in college. I'd put more stock in what a player actually did with his talents at the collegiate level than what those talents are. It's not foolproof, but a guy like Russell Wilson probably doesn't drop to the third-round in that scenario.

The trouble with looking at what guys did in college though is that it's largely influenced by the quality of the talent around them in college as well as the talent of the competition they faced so it's hard to get an even playing field while evaluating players.

Look at how many qbs put up big stats at top schools or how many Heisman winners never did anything meaningful in the NFL.

[24]

The majority of the time they do. It's impossible to account for the many different variables that can come up with a player. I'm convinced the only reason Montana was drafted higher was due to the fact that he lacked arm strength and due to the fact that his college stats weren't the most impressive in the world.

[Feared]

Quote: Originally Posted by kaletore11

Scouts definitely know what they're talking about, at least the good ones. But judging a persons character and future decisions is the hardest thing to do, you never know if you'll guess it right or not.

Right, Scouts get paid to evaluate film. You can make some projections based on a college players on the field production by watching film, but you can't predict their drive and how hard they are going to work once they are given a Pro Check going by film alone.

[Fistandilius]

I don't think there's any way to tell who gets it "right" or not. And I think the only thing that matters at the end of the day is the results, not what could have been.

Mel Kiper Jr. gets paid year after year to be the so-called expert and in my experience he's wrong the majority of the time when it comes to who is actually going to get taken by who and where.

Thing is, 2 people can look at the same exact thing and come to two different conclusions. Then you get a group of 10 together and how many of those are just convinced by what someone else said?

The NFL is a win now organization. They have no qualms about throwing away picks left and right. They do it on a regular basis.

Take the qb position for example. In the last 20-25 years I think there are 5 players who were taken in the first round and won a super bowl for the team that drafted them. Aikman, P. Manning, Rothlesberger, Rodgers, and Flacco. Ben, Rodgers, and Flacco already had teams built and waiting for them. I can't remember who came first, Aikman or the team, but he definitely had some HOF'ers around him. You could add Bledsoe to the list, but he has Tom Brady to thank for his ring. You want to go back 30-40 years you could add Jim McMahon to the list, but I can't think of who else.

So what happened to all those other guys? Were they that bad? Were they thrown in too soon?

Look at Alex Smith. Most people thought he was a bust. Then he found a coach who believed in him and look what he's doing now.

Tim Couch is largely believed to be one of the bigger busts in the last 20 years, but there are people in Cleveland who believe that he was basically ruined by years of getting sacked and not having any help. Who is really right?

I like Jimmy Johnson's philosphy. He didn't give a crap what you did in college. If you were smart, and you were athletic, he believed he could coach you. That and he stock piled draft picks. The more draft picks you have, the better chance you have of turning up talent. He did it with the Cowboys and he made the Dolphins pretty competitive before he retired as well and he uncovered a lot of good players.

The teams that are winning super bowls are finding their quarterbacks elsewhere. Eli was traded from the Chargers, Elway was traded from the Colts, Brady was uncovered late in the draft, allegedly Kurt Warner was bagging groceries when the Rams found him, etc. etc.

Yet every year, 2-3 teams have to take a quarterback in the first round and in the long run end up blowing the pick.