What if you held a Pro Day and nobody showed up?

Rollo83 · Post by **Rollo83** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:21 pm

Story sounds very familar. MAC QB has big year and declares early for the NFL draft...only to get picked apart for everything from his smarts to his throwing motion.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/b ... aaf,149836

daspollak · Post by **daspollak** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 4:54 am

I feel for the kid, to have all this hype throughout the year, and now there is no love. Welcome to the NFL. I wish players thought about this more before trying to jump.

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:11 am

Moreover, shouldn't there be some guidance? I mean, there are a billion NFL scouts out there. Can't someone - anyone - with some "inside knowledge" say, "Hey kid, the book on you is that you were awesome in college, but dumb as a stump and have a throwing motion that could take years to correct. Stay in school."

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:04 am

1987alum wrote:Moreover, shouldn't there be some guidance? I mean, there are a billion NFL scouts out there. Can't someone - anyone - with some "inside knowledge" say, "Hey kid, the book on you is that you were awesome in college, but dumb as a stump and have a throwing motion that could take years to correct. Stay in school."

The NFL has a committee that all prospective draft prospects can ask about where their stock is before they are forced to make a decision on the draft. This committee supposedly polls the teams and their scouts to gauge interest in a player. Historically they try to be pessimistic in their analysis and report to the prospect. For instance if they they are hearing that a guy is a late 1st rounder from scouts they'll tell the prospect he's looking at a 2nd round grade. Guys that are thought of as 3rd-4th rounders will be told they're probably 4th-5th rounders, etc.

The problem is that a lot of these kids hear "4th-5th round grade" and think, "Hmm, I'm already a 4th rounder and if I do well in workouts I can get into that 2nd-3rd round area!"

Now I don't know what the committee told Nate Davis, but the fact is that when he declared most of the online draft prognosticators had him pegged in the late 1st to early 3rd of the draft. He was usually considered the 3rd or 4th best QB in the class.

Unfortunately, I don't think mid-major kids get the best shake from the online draft sites, or from the NFL committee. The fact is that a lot of them have not been picked apart nearly as much as the top prospects at larger schools have been by the time the declaration deadline passes. NFL scouts see the numbers, and highlights, and might say that he's looking like a 3rd rounder. But until they start to get nitpicked they don't realize that they're smaller than advertised. They may not notice that goofy grip right away. Once they look closer the kids' stock will plummet.

For what it's worth, Roethlisberger had the opposite experience. When teams started to nitpick him they fell in love with his ability and his intangibles. In Omar's case teams seemed to like his physical ability, but he didn't do well in interviews or learning the system.

In the end there is no way that any prospect can ever get a truly accurate assessment of his draft stock in January. Too much of the scouting and grading goes on between January and April. Things change immensely, and there's just no way to predict how they're going to change. The only thing you could do to change this would be to allow kids that don't hire an agent to return to their college teams later than the current draft declaration deadline. I know the NBA has a later date that kids can pull their name out if they don't like what they've been hearing and if they haven't hired an agent they can return to their college team. I'm not sure why it doesn't work the same way in football.

It's a shame, but from what I was reading at the time he made the decision it appeared that Nate Davis made the right call. Unfortunately, that's looking like a terrible decision now.

BGFootball · Post by **BGFootball** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:53 pm

I never thought he should have declared. First reason is because I saw what happened to Omar and it seemed like he could be setting himself up for the same situation. Secondly, his last 2 games were absolutely horrible. If scouts were watching, there is no way that could have helped him any.

MarkL · Post by **MarkL** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:43 pm

I also never thought he should have left. He ended on a terrible slide and he had enough pieces in place returning to have another very good 2009 season. Add to that he still had to improve his footwork and that takes time.

This is a bit contrasting to Omar. When he left, the pieces weren't in place for another successful season in 2006 as the offense was set to be brand new. It could have proven his mental worth to stick around for another season and help develop new players while learning a new wrinkle in the offense, but the risk was too big of putting up awful numbers because the receivers just wouldn't have been there. Add to that Omar had an impressive though not stellar 2005 season even with the injury, so his stock was not slipping at the end of his career.

Rightupinthere · Post by **Rightupinthere** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:41 am

According to some BSU fans, this was the second "Pro-Day" for BSU. The first one was attending by quite a few teams [20 some?]. This day was a couple days after the combine. Davis wanted more time to "rest up" so he scheduled his own day.

The kid is getting some really bad advise.

h2oville rocket · Post by **h2oville rocket** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:19 am

Rightupinthere wrote:According to some BSU fans, this was the second "Pro-Day" for BSU. The first one was attending by quite a few teams [20 some?]. This day was a couple days after the combine. Davis wanted more time to "rest up" so he scheduled his own day.

The kid is getting some really bad advise.

Rest up. as I understand it, from the combine a couple days before. Not sure how grueling the combine is but it makes more sense knowing that piece. It makes NO sense if he had an inkling that no one was coming.