The NFL mock draft process revealed
The NFL Draft is one of the strangest spectacles in all of sports. The draft itself is, of course, quite simple: each NFL team picks from the top NCAA players over a series of seven rounds with teams picking in a predetermined order. In the past, the draft was not subject to much speculation and was covered mostly after the fact.
Now, with the likes of ESPN and the NFL Network looking to fill a 24-hour cycle with news and stories, the draft has evolved into a convenient time sink. The recent change to having the draft’s first round on a Thursday night has lent the draft even more prominence. With this prominence has come a large group of experts; the draftniks.
Public interest in mock drafts and other draft analysis seems to be at least partially driven by the fact that sports news outlets push them relentlessly during the slow months of March and April. These analyses are provided by draftniks, people who study the draft with wonton abandon.
Draftniks live and breathe football. When they are not analyzing tape of college players to evaluate prospective NFL players, they are watching film of NFL games or live games. Draftniks are asked to do a relatively simple task, to assess the various teams’ needs and to perform mock drafts accordingly. Being a draftnik requires more than an acute understanding of football. Understanding the mechanics of the draft and the mindset of a given general manager and his staff are also essential to successful draft analysis.
With all of the coverage focusing on the draft itself, draftniks are often ignored. The process by which these draft analysts make their picks is a relatively unknown area for the average NFL fan.
[php snippet=1]
To that end, I interviewed Doug Farrar, draft analyst for Football Outsiders and Yahoo! Sports‘ Shutdown Corner
Beau Brace: How do you prepare for the draft? Do you find yourself watching more film than doing anything else?
Doug Farrar: I do tape review pieces for Football Outsiders and other outlets in-season, so it’s not that I watch more tape in preparation for the draft. It’s more that my focus changes immediately, because I don’t do a lot of college stuff during the NFL season – there simply isn’t time. So pretty much the day after the Super Bowl, I start loading up all the college DVDs I’ve built up and haven’t had time to watch before. It goes overnight from non-stop NFL tape to college. But I watch anywhere from 20 to 60 hours of tape a week, depending on what’s required.
BB: Has the new, longer structure of the draft affected how you prepare? Did the lockout change anything for you?
DF: The new format doesn’t really affect me; I’m writing non-stop through any draft, so I don’t have time to go back and look at late round players beyond quick fast-forward hits. And the lockout only changed my view of draft evaluationI can’t really bash a team for missing out on a position of need, because they may have that covered after the lockout ends.
BB: In your player evaluations, how much weight do you give to the strength of a player’s college program relative to other factors like tape and combine measurables? Especially with players like Cam Newton and Tim Tebow, whose college schemes are especially dissimilar to pro-level schemes, do you have to alter your methods?
DF: It depends on the system and the position. Trends play a role, as well. Ten years ago, spread offense quarterbacks were considered automatic NFL washouts, but I think the NFL started to realize that as the spread became a ubiquitous presence in college, pro teams were going to miss out on too many good players. NFL teams have increased their shotgun sets about 300% in the last decade as a result. So for guys like Tebow and Newton, there’s a better chance now than ever before, because offensive coordinators are more willing to do what they have to do to make it work. When you look at how Chan Gailey ran the Pistol offense for the Chiefs in 2008, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Colin Kaepernick was a second-round pick now, where he might have been an undrafted free agent in 2005.
BB: When you are watching film on a player, do you find yourself having to fight the desire to focus on the game? Is it easier for you to zero in on a player in a live game?
DF: Watching tape is a little like archaeology or forensics. You’re solving a mystery. You have to know what to look for, and the only way to get that understanding is to watch as much tape as possible, make some dubious conclusions along the way, and build up your portfolio of accurate evaluations along the way. After years of doing it, I find that I can isolate a player I want when I need to without getting the wider view, but that was difficult at first. You have to develop a trained eye. And that does transfer to the live element — I was in the Qwest Field press box for the Seahawks-Falcons game last year, and I spent most of the first half watching Russell Okung just abuse John Abraham. You watch the game overall to a point, but switching from single view to the overall can get weird.
BB: How have your film sessions affected your watching football as a fan?
DF: Watching all this tape has made me appreciate the game that much morethe complexity of it, the beauty of a perfectly synchronized plan, and how dog-ugly football can be when it doesn’t go well. The closer I watch, the more I love it.
BB: Looking to this year’s draft, what is your view on the Panthers’ situation? They had a “pro-style” QB in Jimmy Clausen but elected to draft Newton with their first overall pick. Does this move surprise you?
DF: Not really. They may have been a 2-14 team last year, but Carolina had an 8-8 defense. Very underrated group, especially linebacker James Anderson. So it didn’t surprise me that they went with the best offensive player available, which was Newton at that point. Now, they just have to build an offense around him. They also have to trade Clausen and explain the Armanti Edwards disaster, but that’s a story for another time.
BB: Building off of that, when you are making mock drafts, do you find yourself putting yourself in the head of the various GMs? Do you have some other method to establish draft order?
DF: I absolutely put myself in the heads of the personnel guys when doing mocksor, to be more accurate, what I think the teams will do based on prior trends and overall needs. I could do mocks that set up to read as if I was the GM and how I’d do it, but I don’t think there are too many people out there interested in what Doug Farrar, general manager, would do. If there’s an interest in my mocks, it’s based on my ability (or the lack thereof) to estimate what teams will do based on what they’ve done before, and what holes those moves have put them in.
It’s worth remembering that a good mock draft might take five to 10 minutes to read, but putting it together may have taken a whole winter of watching tape and trying to get inside the heads of teams’ personnel departments. It’s important and interesting work, but it’s anything but easy.
You can follow Doug Farrar on Twitter and check out his work at Yahoo! and Football Outsiders.
[php snippet=1]
