Gunzlingr
04-28-2003, 09:06 AM
By Chris Landry
April 25, 2003
While the general public sees the National Football League draft as an annual televised event from New York City, very little action actually takes place in the Big Apple. The real nerve center is the 32 draft rooms around the NFL.
The draft has come a long way from the 1930s, when team owners showed up at the draft location with copies of Street and Smith’s preview magazines and did their best not to accidentally draft a player who had passed away or been killed in a war.
The NFL draft was not always the popular televised event that it is today. My first year as a scout in the NFL, the draft was 12 rounds and was completed in one day. It later became split into two days, being held on a weekend. I can tell you firsthand that this created a strategic advantage for us scouts, as the end of the first day of the draft serves the same purpose as halftime does at a game. It allows you to regroup, design more thought-out strategic plans and allows more time to make extra trade calls to maneuver your team in a position to get the player(s) you desire.
The irony of being in a draft room on Draft Day is that basically all of your work is done. You spent months establishing your draft board and then fine-tuning it the last two weeks prior to the draft, and now it’s time to adjust to what unfolds in front of you as Draft Day progresses.
MORE (http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFLDraft/Draft+Extras/2003/Landry041503.htm)
April 25, 2003
While the general public sees the National Football League draft as an annual televised event from New York City, very little action actually takes place in the Big Apple. The real nerve center is the 32 draft rooms around the NFL.
The draft has come a long way from the 1930s, when team owners showed up at the draft location with copies of Street and Smith’s preview magazines and did their best not to accidentally draft a player who had passed away or been killed in a war.
The NFL draft was not always the popular televised event that it is today. My first year as a scout in the NFL, the draft was 12 rounds and was completed in one day. It later became split into two days, being held on a weekend. I can tell you firsthand that this created a strategic advantage for us scouts, as the end of the first day of the draft serves the same purpose as halftime does at a game. It allows you to regroup, design more thought-out strategic plans and allows more time to make extra trade calls to maneuver your team in a position to get the player(s) you desire.
The irony of being in a draft room on Draft Day is that basically all of your work is done. You spent months establishing your draft board and then fine-tuning it the last two weeks prior to the draft, and now it’s time to adjust to what unfolds in front of you as Draft Day progresses.
MORE (http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFLDraft/Draft+Extras/2003/Landry041503.htm)