Greg Gabriel on Draft Prep and War Rooms

Greg Gabriel@greggabe --30 years NFL scouting, 9 years as Scouting Director (Bears)

At the end of the day clubs could have 6 or more reports on some players. The final grade seldom is as high as the best grade nor as low as the worst. It’s a consensus that most in the room can live with #worktogether

If a consensus grade/opinion cannot be reached than the GM steps up and makes the decision. It’s seldom about 1 scouts grade but rather everyone who reported on the player

There are some clubs that have scouts only do the ranking of players from round 4 down. Decision makers set board for top 3 rounds. To insure secrecy, scouts don’t see top of board until day of draft

Draft day is like a football game. You prepare all week and put together a game plan. Then you execute that plan during the game. With the draft, the plan is set during meetings. There shouldn’t be much infighting on draft day

Some draft rooms only have the HC, decision makers and owner in them. Scouts are brought in to answer questions. In others, the whole scouting staff is in the room. That’s what I prefer. At many places the only coach in room is the HC

When clubs do proper prep work leading up to draft as far as trades they will get a high volume of calls on draft day. In 2006 we had 6 clubs calling for our pick (that’s how we got Hester)

In most draft rooms there is a designated person who fields the calls on potential trades then the GM makes the decision on whether or not to make a trade

In the week leading up to the draft, most clubs will let other clubs know if they are interested trading up or down. Terms are seldom discussed that far out. More important to let clubs know that you may want to move

When clubs think about trading back they have to prepare for a group of players if they hold their position and have a separate group of guys they like if they move down. It’s all part of draft prep
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A few days before the draft the League sends out to each club a list of all pertinent people in each draft room as well as the main draft room phone number and the private phone numbers off all the decision makers. The trade guy is always listed

One thing you can be sure of. At the end of draft weekend all 32 clubs feel they improved regardless of what the analysts say



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2019 06:30AM by RamBill.