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snowman
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zn
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snowman
Kevin Demoff is the financial manager, first-in-line to manage the salary cap, he signs players to contracts. I doubt that he has a role in evaluating on-field talent or hiring and firing coaches or front office people. In his years with Tennessee, Fisher's titans never drafted an offensive lineman in the first round.
Demoff is what you say of course but he also participates in the draft process, probably not as an evaluator of talent but if nothing else I suppose to stay on top of it. As such in his various interviews over the years when asked about this or that draft he talks about it in detail. Mostly it's a case of him explaining the reasoning behind picks, and describing the process, and stuff like that.
You're right about Fisher in Tenn--and the Titans routinely fielded top OLs, too. If nothing else they had a great OL coach in Munchak. All OL coaches participate in picking linemen--I suppose the thinking is, you never want to give an OL coach a prospect he doesn't want. The difference is, guys like Munchak and Kromer are also good at picking them in the draft. Boudreau and Hanifan, both historically good OL coaches, were NOT very good at picking them in the draft.
The idea with GR was to develop him as a guard until he was able to replace Jake Long. They knew he was raw, but then fell victim to the new thing that has derailed OL drafting all around the league--it's harder now to assess college OL because the spread is so different in terms of OL play that they are now harder than ever to assess.
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I am a "process guy" and I would love to know what goes on in the room during the draft. How do they decide who to choose? Do they have several players mapped out over the course of the draft and choose from the group when their turn comes up? How do they decide whether to trade the pick? Who decides? What role do the scouts, position coaches, coordinators and front office people have int he draft? Do they throw darts or use a magic eight-ball?
My neighbor is George Edwards, defensive coordinator for the Vikings. If they have another garage sale this summer I really hope he will answer some of my questions, at least how the Vikings do it!
The Rams have been very detailed about this for years. They do have a process and it has been generally the same process under both regimes, this one and the previous one. Their model is not the "uber-GM" model where the GM basically decided everything based on input. They really do have a very collaborative process where the GM, coach, coaches, and scouts all rank the board together, and disputes are settled at that point. Snead also tends to run multiple scenarios where they rehearse the draft. If x happens, and players A through C are not there when we pick, what do we do? If player D falls unexpectedly, what do we do? Their process--which many of the major participants have described many times over the years--involves a lot of conversation. The GM defines his job as finding the specific kinds of players the coaches want for their systems. To name an extreme contrast, when he was coaching the Bears in 2017, Coach John Fox did not even know Trubisky was their top draft target until draft day.
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