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Great read on the draft process and Buddy Nix's role with the Chargers
Lets hope he will help right away in Buffalo
Nix's Path to the Draft
Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007
By Buddy Nix, Chargers.com
http://www.chargers.com/news/headlines/nix-s-path.htm
Leading up to the NFL Draft, Chargers.com will chronicle the draft process with Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Personnel Buddy Nix. In seven seasons with the Chargers, Nix has played a key role in all draft decisions, including decisions to choose Quentin Jammer, Philip Rivers, Shawne Merriman, Luis Castillo, Nick Hardwick. Igor Olshansky, Nate Kaeding, Vincent Jackson, Antonio Cromartie, Marcus McNeill, etc., etc., etc..
Buddy Nix
We’re about five weeks away from draft day now, and I have to say this is about my favorite time of year. We believe that the draft is the best way to improve our football team. The decisions that we make in the next few weeks are going to have a big impact on this organization. There’s some stress and pressure towards the end, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s competitive. We’re all trying to make our teams better.
The draft is a year-round process for our scouting staff. As soon as we finish this year’s draft in April, we have a mini camp and then take one week off. Then we meet and read scouting reports on all the juniors. We try to determine who the prospects are and track them all the way through the fall. That’s when it begins for us.
This draft is a lot different for our staff because we’re going to have to wait a while before we pick. We pick 30th in the first round. It’s challenging. When you’re picking in the top five or 10, it’s hard to not get a good player. With where we are this year, there are some guys that we know won’t be there. Sometime between now and draft day, we’ll get a better idea of the number of possibilities we may have at that position. Once you figure out who is likely to be there, you concentrate on those guys.
The thing to remember is that two years ago we got a really good player drafting 28th in Luis Castillo. Who would have thought Marcus McNeill would be sitting there later in the second round last year? It didn’t take us long to turn that pick in. You just do your homework and get ready for anything.
Right now I’m in the process of attending “pro day” workouts at college campuses all around the country. The Scouting Combine ends on a Tuesday and schools start having their pro days that Saturday. We go home, change clothes and go on the pro days. We’ll go to about three workouts each week. A couple weeks ago, I went to Auburn on Monday, Clemson Tuesday and LSU Wednesday. Then I flew back to San Diego on Thursday. That’s pretty typical.
I try to go to as many pro days as I can. I mostly go to places that have players that we think we might be interested in. We don’t go to every pro day. If a guy doesn’t do something at the Combine, we go to his pro day and get his “measurables.” Also, if there’s a guy that we think runs a 4.5 in the forty in the spring and he runs a 4.7 at the Combine, we know something is wrong. We’ll go to that player’s pro day to make sure we get an accurate number.
The Combine and pro days give you a chance to get to know these guys better, but we’re 90 percent set on a guy based on what he does playing. The other 10 percent is running, jumping and basically a track or gymnastics meet. We factor in the Wonderlic test and spend a lot of time talking to the guys, but generally the tape doesn’t lie. You’ll hear A.J. talk about a guy’s body of work. That’s what we want to see.
Character is big with us. We try not to bring in anyone who isn’t our kind of people. We talk to them and we visit with everyone we know about them. Scouting is a lot about who you know. You’ve got to do your homework to make sure you know that you’re getting a good player and a good person.
I have to spend a few days in March in the office meeting with coaches and getting ready for the time we’ll spend with our scouts reading our final scouting reports on all the draft prospects. Once the pro days have wrapped up, we’re allowed to bring 30 guys to our place to give them physicals. We’ve got a 10-day window to do that. A lot of my time in the office is spent organizing those visits. We’ll have two or three a day from April 4 to April 14. We’re allowed to keep them 24 hours.
In this business, you may miss on a guy every once in a while because we’re humans dealing with other humans. I can assure you we’ll never miss because of a lack of preparation. There’s too much at stake. I love what I’m doing so I have to do it the best I can to be successful.
" ~ yordad
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