Originally posted by Cardinals.Ken
He was projected as a top 10 pick a few months ago, I saw him as high as #7! I saw him play 6 times last year, and there wasn't a guard or center combo in the Pac-10 that could contain him. I know he ballooned up for the combine, but he could play at around 290 in a one-gap scheme.
Well he went to the combine.
He was slow. He was weak....here is an article about him from the sportingnews:
Looking for pluses in prospects
April 24, 2003 Print it
The team's decision makers are gathered around a long, rectangular table in the draft room. The doors are closed. The subject is Washington State defensive tackle Rien Long. The scout responsible for the West Coast stands and gives his report.
"He's 6-6, 303 pounds, which gives him an ideal frame. And he's capable of getting bigger. He was incredibly productive, with 13 sacks and 21 1/2 tackles for a loss. He was the linchpin on a defense that held opponents to 2.43 yards per carry, which ranked fifth in the country. He plays with great intensity. Long is instinctive, and he finds the ball quickly. Long has some leg drive but gets driven at times. He broad-jumped 9-4, which was best among the top defensive tackle prospects. His three-cone drill time of 7.09 was better than all the top DT and DE prospects. Long's best football is yet to come, and with good coaching, he can be a top playmaker as a pass rusher and run-stopper."
After feedback from other men in the room, the team plays a "highlight tape," which shows Long's most impressive plays of the 2002 season.
In another draft room that is far away in distance and philosophy, a similar scene plays out.
The area scout responsible for the West Coast gives his report on Long.
"He's tall at 6-6 and plays high, sometimes losing leverage to shorter players. He weighs 303 but will need to add bulk and strength in order to survive against stronger players on this level. He had a lot of production in college, but a lot of it was the result of the scheme and playing against inferior players. Even with 13 sacks, you don't see great pass-rush ability. He's a mechanical athlete without a lot of agility. Long isn't very explosive, and he's not a 'quick-twitch' guy. It takes him a few steps to get to full speed. He's on the ground a lot. He ran a 5.2 40-yard dash, which is slow, and he bench-pressed 225 pounds only 18 times, which is weak. He won't be as productive in the NFL as he was in college, but he could end up being a rotation guy."
After discussion from the other front office men, the team reviews a "profile tape," which shows plays picked out by the scout that he thought outlined what Long can and can't do.
These two scenes are hypothetical, but the scouting assessments are real. They are illustrations of how teams take divergent approaches to scouting.
There is the football-is-half-inflated school. And there is the half-deflated school.
49ers consultant Bill Walsh is the father of the half-inflated approach. "I wanted to know what a player's redeeming qualities are, how he can improve our team and help us win, even if it's just covering kickoffs," Walsh says. "Others take the approach of trying to eliminate players. You can eliminate and eliminate and find out you don't have enough prospects to cover the draft."
Most of the best talent evaluators think like Walsh. "Anybody can be negative," former Packers general manager Ron Wolf says. "In Green Bay, I'd say, 'Let's find something positive.' I don't need somebody to tell me what's wrong with a guy."
Texans general manager Charley Casserly says he always starts with what a player can do. He assumes his coaches can bring out the best in the player and that he can become stronger.
Walsh's concepts apply more to players who will be chosen from the third round on, as high picks need to be as flawless as possible. No one is suggesting ignoring a player's shortcomings. But it's easy, especially this close to the draft, for scouts to beat up every prospect for warts, real and imagined.
In the spring of 1979, Walsh observed how teams were beating up a quarterback because he was an erratic thrower, an inconsistent player and not big enough at 190 pounds. "It was bureaucratic profiling, the ultimate example of a player being downgraded out of the draft because people were looking at his numbers and failing to see his most significant qualities," says Walsh, who ignored the consensus of the scouting world and focused on the player's intensity, instinctive play, stamina and competitiveness. For a third-round draft pick, Joe Montana didn't end up being too bad.
Shortly after, Walsh came up with the concept of the highlight tape. He wanted to see maybe 20 of a prospect's best plays and 10 of his worst.
Now, some teams like the Broncos use highlight tapes that have no negative plays on them. "Scouts often will give you 17 things a player can't do and miss the two or three things he can do that would make a guy a good seventh-round pick," Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist says. "Highlight tapes enable you to find more positives."
Other teams disagree with the highlight tape approach because, as Wolf says, a highlight tape can make a bad player look good. The Texans avoid this issue by making "point of attack" tapes, which show every significant play from a season or from a large number of games. For a running back, for instance, that would encompass every run, every block and every pass thrown to him.
Talent evaluators need to be able to recognize greatness, even if it is apparent only in slivers.
http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/dan_pompei/20030424.html
