The weeks leading up to the NFL Draft is crunch time for general managers and their scouting departments. As the saying goes, they're making their lists and checking them twice to be sure which players can and cannot be trusted.
After players over the next couple weeks visit team facilities for medical re-checks and further conversations about any behavioral issues, draft boards can be finalized. Several players on those boards will be given red dots for injury concerns or blue dots for character issues. Those dots likely will cause precipitous drops in the draft.
Teams must weigh talent versus potential headaches as they evaluate players with behavioral concerns, and no GM or coach wants to wrestle with problematic players. Thinking an immature prospect can change often turns into fool's gold and late night phone calls.
Last year, two defensive ends learned the hard way. Randy Gregory, projected as a high first-round pick until he failed a drug test at the Combine, fell to the second round (Dallas). Shane Ray, projected in the top 10 before an arrest on a marijuana possession charge three days before the draft, fell to 23rd overall (Denver). Both lost millions of dollars.
As a former GM and team president, I always considered it inexcusable for a player to mess up off the field during what's basically a four-month interview. To fail a drug test at the Combine, where players know they’ll be tested, is a major red flag — the height of either stupidity or serious addiction. If their agents are doing their jobs, the players constantly are being reminded to stay clean.
And yet every year, a few players fail the test or find other trouble.
This year, Ole Miss defensive lineman Robert Nkemdiche and Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott are among those who apparently did not get the memo. Nkemdiche could have been a top 10 pick until he fell from a hotel window in December and was charged with marijuana possession. Prescott was a borderline first- or second-round projection until he was arrested for DUI on March 12.
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And in Prescott's case, quarterbacks are supposed to be smart guys who make good decisions. Drinking and driving is never a good decision. And a prospect doing it during the pre-draft evaluation period reeks of stupidity. They're called "Designated Drivers" for a reason, Dak!
It just doesn't cut it when a player like Nkemdiche or Prescott makes a public apology and tells team officials that he has learned his lesson. Such proclamations make GMs, scouts and coaches roll their eyes. The cliche rings true: Actions speak louder than words.
There were many occasions in our Vikings and Titans draft meetings where a player was knocked or taken off the board if the injury factor was too severe or behavioral questions were too overwhelming. But sometimes a team does some real digging to get a better read on a player who, at first glance, looks like trouble. Such was the case in 1998 with wide receiver Randy Moss.
The subject of the longest discussion about a player in any draft meeting I've ever been in, Moss was involved in a nasty high school fight over a racial slur against a friend. He had an alleged failed marijuana test that caused him to get kicked out of Florida State and enroll at Marshall, where he had a stellar college career. Moss also failed to show up at the Combine.
Fortunately we (the Vikings) had a scout — Conrad Cardano — who had worked under Bob Pruett, Moss' coach at Marshall. Cardano spent extensive time researching Moss and talked at length with Pruett, who said Moss was an incredible talent whose off-field problems were in the distant past.
Cardano's evaluation and Moss' obvious talent convinced us that he was a moderate risk/high reward player worth taking if he fell to us at No. 21. At that spot, the financial risk (four years, $4.5 million) was much less than it would have been for a team picking in the top five, which was where Moss was talent-wise. The Cowboys in particular were very interested in Moss with their eighth overall pick but decided he was too risky. (They were trying to clean up their act after an era of off-field turmoil.)
We felt comfortable because we knew our All-Pro receiver Cris Carter would be a great mentor for Moss, which was the case. I also protected the team with punitive clauses in Moss’ contract, which involved getting back a portion of his signing bonus in the event of misbehavior and any league suspensions.
Moss rewarded our trust in him with a rookie-record 17 touchdown catch-season that earned him Offensive Rookie of the Year, and he played a huge role on our 15-1 team that lost to Atlanta in the NFC title game. He had a few behavioral and legal issues over the years but never was suspended. Now he is a sure Hall of Famer.
So the Moss selection was a home run. But in the 1995 draft, we, along with 10 other teams, passed on Warren Sapp. There were unconfirmed but unsettling pre-draft drug rumors about the defensive tackle, and the damage was done. A top-five talent fell to No. 12, immediately after we took a safer player in defensive end Derrick Alexander, who started several years before injuries shortened his career. Alexander never was the impact player that Sapp became.
That's the inexact science of the draft at work.
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All things being equal talent-wise, a GM always will take the player with the cleaner background. And for Nkemdiche and Prescott, as was the case for Gregory and Ray, there's no disputing the facts of their transgressions.
GMs know there is some risk with any draft selection. The key is to reach a point where the GM feels he is making the best possible pick with the lowest level of potential failure.
Jeff Diamond is the former president of the Titans and the former vice president/general manager of the Vikings. He was selected NFL Executive of the Year in 1998. Diamond is currently a business and sports consultant who also does broadcast and online media work. He is the former chairman and CEO of The Ingram Group. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffdiamondNFL.
