NFC South Team: only 4 scouts evaluate a 1st R pick before Combine

[gettlemanjack]

from an long but interesting investigative report right after the 2013 Draft by the New Orleans paper (Saints took Vaccaro #15 overall in the 1st R of the 2013 Draft):

Timeline:

-Vaccaro was a senior who had played since his freshman year, started since his sophomore year and earned a spot on the Big 12 coaches' first-team all-conference roster as a junior.

-Lucas, who was the Saints' Southwest area scout until last year, had seen Vaccaro and had conversations with Texas coaches about him over the years. But with so many hundreds of prospects spread around the country each year, the Saints don't seriously dive into analyzing college players until they are seniors ... college scouting director Rick Reiprish said: "Obviously if you put film on, you're looking at the seniors ... I don't really pay attention to the underclass guys until they actually commit to coming out."

-Spring 2012 (the spring before Vaccaro's senior year) - The first scouting report on Vaccaro in the Saints' file came last spring from the scout for the National Football Scouting service, to which 21 NFL teams subscribe. National Football Scouting employs 11 scouts who cover every football-playing school in the country and produce reports on roughly 1,200 upcoming seniors each spring. All 11 scouts are affiliated with NFL teams, though they share their information with all 21 member teams. Each of the 11 scouts is assigned to a region, for ex, Vitt is primarily responsible for the area including Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Alabama.

"The grade by the (scout from the National Football Scouting) would say whether I'm going in or not," said Reiprish (Saints college scouting director)

-late Sept 2012 (only seven months before draft) - Saints college scouting director Rick Reiprish got his first look at Vaccaro. He filed the Saints' first official scouting report on Vaccaro after that late-September visit. When Reiprish went on his visit, he estimated that seven NFL teams were there on the same day.

-a week later: Saints Southwest area scout Mike Baugh visited Texas the next week and filed his own report.

-October - Saints South regional scout Josh Lucas went in for a 4th opinion on Vaccaro.

-The NFL scouting combine - the Saints' coaches and general manager Mickey Loomis got involved during the NFL scouting combine

By the time the Saints actually drafted Vaccaro with the 15th overall pick in last month's NFL draft, they had official reports from seven different sources in their file on him - from:

1) Reiprish - college scouting director

2) Baugh - Southwest area scout

3) Lucas - South regional scout

4) from the scout from the National Football Scouting service

5) secondary coach Wesley McGrif

6) assistant secondary coach Andre Curtis

7) defensive coordinator Rob Ryan

-plus the opinions of Loomis and Payton, among others.

as for Saints third-round draft choice OT Terron Armstead, there were only six official reports in his file.

http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2013/05/anatomy_of_a_draft_pick_a_deta.html

[Bartin]

Gettleman has said he doesn't even start looking at college players until after the combine. Obviously we have some college scouts doing preliminary work, but Gettleman said he is more focused on evaluating potential free agents in January and February.

[Pejorative Miscreant]

Sorry op but what am I supposed to make of this?

[Ricky Spanish]

Sorry op but what am I supposed to make of this?

 

I get it now, I had to reread it - 

 

He's saying that the Saints only use 4 scouts to evaluate a prospect before he declares for the draft and enters the combine. The way the thread is worded made it seem like a scout for the NFC South believes there were only 4 prospects worthy of a first round grade before the combine. 

[Servant of Cthululelei]

[LUUUUUKE]

Would've been nice for there to be some type of point to that wall of text I just read

[Sean Payton's Vicodin]

What's the point of this

[pantherfan49]

What's the point of this

That New Orleans sucks. Don't know how everybody isn't seeing that.

[Cary Kollins]

Is this another argument against climate science?

[SIGCHI222]

[csx]

It's an informative piece of info regarding how teams evaluate players. Not everything is a lead in to a debate....though most is here.

Funny that everyone is trying to figure out how to respond.