WR: Congratulations, Ted, your organization has reached the mountaintop. Your six years of contributing toward the ultimate goal in team sport have been realized. Please describe the sense of accomplishment?

TS: Well, I tell you what it sure feels great. In anything that you do you want to strive to be the best, whether it’s football, whether it’s building cars, whether it’s selling insurance, whatever. I think that the goal of any man’s work is to strive to be the best at what he does. And the ultimate team sport of football we achieved the ultimate accomplishment which was to be the last of the 30 NFL teams standing at the end of the season. Having been in football all my life, you realize championships are the thing, but obviously there are other goals to attain - when you’re at the college level the development of a young man’s character and his education. But, when you reach the next level and it’s a business, the business is winning. And, when you get a taste of being the last team standing, like I said, and you’ve won the Super Bowl championship, you realize, quickly, what it’s all about. For 29 teams, there might have been some small accomplishments here and there and some goals that they met along the way, 29 teams don’t reach the final goal every year. As the last team standing you found out just how difficult it is to reach that goal...and now you’ve kind of got a new standard. Being with it from the start, in July with training camp, all the way through pre-season, that started in Mexico with the American Bowl, and then all the way through the 12-4 regular season, then having the playoffs begin with the Wild Card game, and go on the road and beat Kansas City and beat Pittsburgh, and beat the defending champion Packers - wow. Now I have raised the bar to a higher standard for the rest of my career to hold future teams that I’ll be a part of up to. We’ve been fortunate to now know what it takes to be the best and know it will always take a little bit more than it took the time before. There are so many people in the NFL who have not had the opportunity to feel what we are feeling right now after the Super Bowl victory. Many NFL career’s have happened without experiencing this tremendous feeling. We feel fortunate to have tasted it now, so that next year and the year after that and the year after that we’ll always be striving for that feeling that we’ve got right now.

TS: There was a specific point. The way the season went last year and we won the division with 12-1, we had a really good reason to feel good about ourselves, which, in the end, was our downfall. Obviously, we struggled at the end of the season and we weren’t mentally prepared going into the playoffs. As we got on a roll last season and got up to that 12-1 mark and won real early, I felt like we had a good football team, but at the same point there were a few key components missing. We weren’t playing consistent defense. Our offense was gelling and coming together, but at that point we weren’t quite the rushing team that we are now being able to run the ball now like we did in the Super Bowl. I think after the 13-3 year, the off season was at that point, we should have gone farther in the playoffs than we did. Jacksonville played a great football game that day. I knew there was no way Mike was going to stand pat and he didn’t. He aggressively made moves to improve our team. That’s when I knew, Hey, we‘ve got a chance to be even better next year and we were a pretty darn good football team in 1996.

TS: First of all our leader, Coach Shanahan, would not let this group of guys become complacent. His leadership is what sets the tone. Plus we have terrific people throughout our organization and our players appreciate and respond to that. Mike’s aggressive approach to building this team correlates to aggressive play on the field. He was aggressive in the free agent market constantly trying to improve our team.

He went out and got the best blocking fullback in the league in Howard Griffith, which improved the running game even more. He went out and got Neil Smith. A lot of people thought Neil Smith’s abilities were waning a little bit, but the thing that Neil Smith brought to our football team was a great degree of leadership on the defensive side. He was an excellent leader on our football team this past season. Maybe his sack numbers weren’t as high. In Neil Smith, we brought a guy who was hungry - he wanted to win. A guy who is in the back end of an outstanding career so winning a Super Bowl meant even more to him. He was gonna do other things besides just on the field things to get us where we wanted to go. We were very aggressive in the free agent market, obviously doing that took a way from our draft. We ended up trading some of our choices to get a young offensive lineman from Texas . We expect that Dan Neil will help us down the road. We took Trevor Pryce in the first round, who was an early out junior, that we felt has a tremendous upside on the front line. So those guys will help us, hopefully, down the road. But coming off a 13-3 year, we could’ve said we just stubbed our toe and we’ll stand pat but Mike didn’t do that. It paid off because we had a special group of guys that went out and became the best team in the world.

TS: First off, with our team, philosophy and overall plan goes through Mike. He feels we have the premiere quarterback in the NFL. Though some of John’s outright physical skills from his younger days, people say have waned a little bit, and they would...remember he’s 37 years old. But I think the team was built around the skills that John’s got, his experience and his leadership. We knew that in the past Denver tried to ride the back of his throwing arm the whole way and it hadn’t worked. So we came in here and put together a complete team around John, it wasn’t so much a win now philosophy, but it might appear that way to people on the outside. Mike’s philosophy was more, let’s take the system that I know and surround him with the right pieces to take advantage of the skills he’s got at this point in his career. Yes we want to win now but I don’t think we’ve sacrificed the future. I like the prospects past John Elway. Coach Shanahan is not so narrow minded that he’s not planning for when John Elway hangs it up. John still has to make the decision this off season whether he’s going to come back next year or not. I believe John will return to lead our title defense next year. Obviously we want John Elway back but, there’s going to be a lot of us still left around here wanting to go back to the show.

TS: That’s a tough one. I would say that no one will ever fill John’s shoes but we do feel that our offensive scheme is balanced enough now to with stand his departure. We drafted Jeff Lewis, 2 years ago, a fourth rounder out of Northern Arizona. To me, he’s got a lot of physical tools that remind you of a Brunnell, a Favre, a Young, an Elway. Is he of that caliber yet? No. He was a fourth round draft pick, but he has this knack of being able to make something happen when he gets in there. He can run, he’s tough, he has good arm strength and he sees the field well. He just needs experience, from a scouting standpoint... from a personnel standpoint, I get excited about the prospects of a Jeff Lewis down the road. Can I predict that he’s going to be a great star. Boy, I’d like to. When I look at his raw talent, I think he has all the tools to be a good football player but he just needs game experience. Jeff needs to get in there and play some. That’s difficult when John’s still playing as well as he his at this point in his career. Knowing Coach, he’s going to be aggressive in everything that he does. And if he feels there’s a free agent quarterback out there on the horizon that could keep us at the level we are currently at , he’d go after that guy. If he feels comfortable with Jeff’s progress as we’re going along, he’d put him in there. And the system might be pulled back a little bit as Jeff’s feeling his way through it which might mean emphasizing up the running game even more. That might mean pulling back within the offensive system and not throwing everything at Jeff as much. We are spoiled with John Elway. But I think Mike, in his mind, has an idea about what this football team needs to look like within the system that he wants to employ and I think he’s moving in that direction. With John out of the picture one way or another, I don’t think that it changes us all that much. John’s an integral part of this team, but by no means the only guy that’s making us go. I don’t see Mike being the head coach and personnel type guy that’s going to build our team around just one player. Which is exactly what he has not done. We have developed the running game, trying to make a strong , fast defense. And I’d like to think that what we’re doing right now is building an organization designed to maintain our winning ways. As you take a look at the Denver Broncos right now - our defensive philosophy that emphasizes speed and quickness, with same approach on the offensive front, having a running back like Terrell, and big physical receivers - that ‘s the same plan with or without John.

TS: Like I said before, Mike, is the Head coach and he handles all football decisions for the Denver Broncos. Everything goes through him. Neal Dahlen is the Director of Player Personnel. Neal handles the negotiation of contracts and the following of the salary cap with regard to acquisition, free agency and college draft choices. Then the actual scouting duties are handed down to Jack Elway in the pro department. He handles the evaluation of the free agent talent throughout out the year. College scouting, which is myself, handle the evaluation of college talent throughout the year. Our main focus with the Denver Broncos from a scouting standpoint, is to gather as much information and to gather as many different opinions with regard to evaluation as we possibly can. And to have that in an organized, concise report format to present to the coach and his staff so they can make smart decisions in regard to personnel. I can understand the old time philosophy of separation of personnel and coaching, but to me it seems a little bit silly to have a coach and make him to force a square peg into a round hole. Mike has a system . He believes strongly in that system both offensively and defensively. And it doesn’t make sense to try to force players on to him that don’t fit into that system. You’re setting yourself up for failure. I think a lot of coaches at times get into a position where they want to run this and that and the personnel guys think they have the answer in regards to the players. It’s team sport you have to work together. The thing with Mike is... He’s a very intelligent guy inside and outside of football. He’s not just an X and O guy. He’s not just a one-track coach. I think the salary cap, the evaluation of talent, everything that feeds into football operations interests him and he has a great understanding of these areas. We’ve got a unique guy. I’m not going to say that every coach is capable of doing what Mike’s able to do because I don’t think that many could. Some guys are great coaches but they can’t handle the business side of it, let’s say. You see that at the college level as well. Mike’s talents are very diverse. He’s able to take off the coaching hat and put on the player personnel hat and take that hat off and put on the business administration hat. He will look at everything from a big picture aspect and take input to make his decisions very well. With our organization it is not an ego thing, everybody gets an opportunity to say what and how they feel about an issue. Mike wants input from people. He takes it from the coaches, he takes it from the scouts, he takes it all the way down to the assistants in the scouting department and our administrative staff. He treats us all like men and with respect. He respects all our opinions and gives us the opportunity to voice your opinions but in the end, the final decision is his and that ‘s the way it should be. That’s the way Mike runs it in everything that he does. But there aren’t any two, let’s say opposing powers, one in player personnel, one in coaching, that are always trying to butt heads with their philosophy and some kind of check and balance system. We are truly a team. He’s the leader of our football team at the top. And it takes a special guy. And we’re fortunate that Mr. Bowlen was able to hire a guy like that who has the ability to cipher through all the mud and muck and make good decisions and sound decisions and right decisions to help us win.

TS: I tell you what it also shows within our system. I think scouting would love to take all the credit for taking Terrell Davis. Terrell was taken during the first year that Mike came in and the present college scouting system that we have now was not in place at that time. This was right after he was named head coach. Mike changed our approach to personnel decision-making so that the coaches were extremely involved with the scouts. We, as a scouting staff, saw there was something there. But to the degree to which how he would fit into the Bronco offensive system once again, I don’t thing we really realized it as a scouting staff. However by then, most of the offensive staff had been hired with regard to Gary Kubiak and Alex Gibbs. With the coaches being involved in player evaluations, they saw something they really liked. They felt Terrell would fit in with the style of offensive that we run. Our scouting staff saw his vision, one cut ability, lower body strength. But the coaches felt his ability to catch the ball out in the flat , soft natural hands, the burst up field, and his toughness fit into our scheme. They really got excited about those things. We needed a running back so let’s take a shot at this guy from Georgia because he’s got all the tools we’re looking for. I think sometimes scouts get hung up on numbers, stats, 40 yard dashes, productivity over that last 2-3 seasons. In the long run the big question is - How does the guy play the game? Again, as our system from the personnel standpoint, was coming together, this was the first time I had seen the coaches as involved as they’d been. Fortunately our coaches weren’t going to let us overlook this guy. And as we started to discuss him with the scouts providing their input on what they’d seen and had learned about his background from Long Beach, his injury at Georgia and about him backing up Garrison Hearst with very few opportunities to show what he can do on the field some of our staff remained unconvinced. Then the coaches reassured us that Terrell was the kind of guy we’re looking for who fit into our system. He showed flashes of things that we thought would help us. Once convinced it was kind of a no -brainier, 6th round pick, shoot, let’s take a chance on him. I think that was the first opportunity for us to show, the Mike Shanahan system at its best - how working together, scouting and coaching, would ultimately prove successful. Not the scouts saying hey this guy was injured, wasn’t productive, bad work habits, blah, blah, blah and the coaches seeing something different. It was all of us putting together our collective minds and giving Mike the feeling that this guys’ worth a shot in the 6th round.

TS: I think it’s difficult to project a guy. The key for us is determining which players fit into our system. 1st and 2nd round draft choices are easy. The fans can make those picks when they see them making plays on TV. Those are the no no-brainers, so to speak. The hard ones are when you get to the 6th & 7th round, even to signing college free agents, trying to find a flash here or a flash there of something that you think fits within what you’re doing. That’s why we get so many different opinions. In our particular system you’ve got no less than 4 scouts looking at a guy. We are not going to let one guy override any other scout. The more input you get the better decision you will make. We’ve got long time scouts, ex- players, ex- coaches, coaches with different backgrounds/offenses and defenses, college, pro and there may be something there that one guy sees that another guy just didn’t quite see. Because we work together as a coaching staff and a scouting staff, there’s more of an understanding of what the coaches are looking for exactly and the coaches understanding exactly how we scout. It is only our third year in this system so the longer we continue to work together the more clearly we will understand each others roles. The more you understand and the more you communicate with each other the more you know what the other people need and want. We’re going to find the round pegs to fit in the round holes. We’re going to get on the same page and those projections are going to be easier to make in the 6th and 7th round because we know what the coaches are looking for, what the system demands. We break it down to every single position on the football field. Not just defensive tackles, but is he an eagle tackle or a nose tackle. Is he a power end or an eagle end. A guy’s got to fit. There’s some great players out there who won’t fit in our system. To take a great NFL prospect and say let’s draft him and force him to play in our system because he’s a great football player, well it won’t be productive for the team and sometimes you’re not being fair to the player. So as you get down to the 6th or 7th round you ‘re looking for somebody that you know fits into the parameters on our offense or defense. If there is something there that one of the 4 or 5 people who evaluated this player sees then bring it up and make a draft day decision. Then the projection is not such a long shot. This guys got some good length... some good upper body strength... he’s got fairly good feet... he’s fairly slender... but I think he could make a good eagle end or a good rush end. Let’s put some weight on this guy and see. Coaches may say let’s bring him in and put him in the weight room for one or two years and see if we can develop him into a rush end. He ’s got the body frame, the long arms, quick feet, tough guy. He might be missing one or two things but shows flashes of being a player then we might take a shot on a guy. Due to roster size and free agency we will take fewer project guys that in the past.

TS: 87% of all players who are drafted in the NFL draft over the past 10 years are NCAA Division 1 players. They were sifted through at the high school level. They’re at the Florida State’s, Texas’s, Michigan’s, etc. for a reason, they were the best coming out of high school. If you can focus your attention on those 111 Division 1 schools, initially, you’re gonna find the bulk of all the college football players capable of playing on Sunday. We try to focus on the Division 1 level. The next bunch of players are Division 1-AA players. A significant percentage of 1-AA players are usually transfers. They’ve been at the Division 1 level and for one reason or another they’re transferred down to 1-AA teams. There are some 1-AA teams that play at a Division 1 level and have major college talent. But we’re gonna make sure we cover the productive 1-AA’s and that through the National Scouting Combine and their list of the top 1-AA players, that we can even look at those guys. So, I want to concentrate where the players traditionally are and where the Combine is sending me. I don’t want to chase every prospect that might be a guy out there. The John Mobley’s of the world will be found, there are no more secrets. These guys are going to surface. Be it through scouts talking on the road or whatever the small college studs will surface. You’re going to see these guys at the Blue-Grey game, at the Senior Bowl, etc. The days of trying to find the needle in the haystack and hide him on a roster are over. You have to find productive football players who when they step on the field at their first mini camp and their first two weeks of training camp they won’t be afraid. They’re gonna stand up and play and be ready to go.

These guys, to me personally, My philosophy is that these guys have got to be consistent. I’m looking for consistency on the football field. I know when you are getting down to 6th or 7th rounders and seeing the flash of ability here and there - that’s ok...but when you’re talking 1st, 2nd, or 3rd round players, these guys have to be PLAYERS. You’re investing a lot of money in these players as well as time and effort to find them. These guys have to be consistent. They have to make plays all the time. We stress that heavily. Mike has made it very apparent to us that 1st, 2nd , 3rd round pick - have got to be a sure thing - we have to feel really good about these picks. As you get into the 4th,5th,6th, and 7th round there may be one or two things missing but the other abilities and flashes that a player has must fit into the parameters of our system - getting back to our system as the key once again. Finishing up our 3rd year under Mike, we’ve got a better feel for each of the positions, what the coaches are looking for and what they’re thinking about. It’s imperative that we remember we’re scouting for the Denver Broncos not the NFL.

TS: Within the scouting system itself, we have an extensive cross check system, so that no single opinion has to stand alone. I know a lot of other teams do as well. Our scouts have a primary area in the country. They give a guy a grade. Based on that grade and on an initial grade coming out of the Combine meetings , which I give the scouts, we decide which players rate being seen again. This determines the coverage we give with the cross checks. The area scout will go into another area and cross check there. That scout has the ability to overrule a guy - so to speak. If I was an area scout and I didn’t like a guy, if my cross check guy went in and likes the guy his grade can bump this guy up and do what we call a" talk-about" grade where we’ll talk about the guys with the coaches. No one evaluation is going to bury another opinion. We rely heavily on the first two grades (primary & cross-check). If a prospect rates a "talk- about" grade then we go in and give a "position grade". Each of our scouts will evaluate a position. For example, we will have a quarterback scout who will concentrate on that position and evaluate every quarterback with a "talk- about" grade...from the Peyton Mannings’, the Ryan Leafs’ to the 1-AA quarterback who rates a look. Our position scout develops an expertise after several years of evaluating and comparing the top quarterbacks. The fourth look at a prospect would be mine where I’ll evaluate and grade each "talk- about" player that is draftable. After this fourth evaluation we will prepare reports for the coaching staff for them to make their evaluations. Then our scouting staff will sit down with the coordinators and the position coach to discuss each player. At this point our area scouts will go home and Jerry Frey, Jack Elway, and myself will meet to go over the prospects again to discuss the scouts comments and the coaches needs to begin to put together our "Draft Board". We put together the pecking order for our "Draft Board" based on the needs of the team and the prospects who fit our system. At this point , we get a good idea of who the top 175 Bronco players might be. Then we rank them, based on our philosophy and system where we would draft these players - NOT predict the NFL draft but determine how we rate them as future Denver Broncos.

TS: Free agency has affected our drafting philosophy quite a bit because we have been somewhat aggressive in acquiring veteran free agents in recent years. Based on moves we may make in free agency we may not be in a position to afford top draft choices. We can now fill a lot of holes with proven players and enhance depth at certain positions with solid experienced players as opposed to trying to do this solely through the drafting of college players as had been done in years past. In regards to the Denver Broncos, free agency has proven to be a positive mesh with the college draft. What we needs don’t shore up through free agent moves we look to fill on draft day and visa versa.

TS: Being hired as the Director of College Scouting after 3 years in the league. I don’t think that Mike hired me initially for my vast knowledge and years of experience. What I did bring to the table was management style, organizational style, ability to start projects and finish them, attention to detail and the ability to make leadership decisions. These were all things taught to me at the Air Force Academy and from my 9 years as an officer in the Air Force. I find those as my strengths that I bring to the club. As this job has gone along I have found many similarities with my years in the Air Force. Having coached at the NCAA Division 1 level, my three previous years with the Broncos, having seen 3 different Head Coaches, 3 different Directors of Player Personnel, and 3 different Directors of College Scouting. In a relatively short period of time, I’ve had an opportunity to see a lot of different styles to pick and choose the things I like and don’t like from each person. My main philosophy with regard to being a Director, is not to tell the scouts how to scout and not say that I’m the guru scout, but to give them as many tools as possible to get the job done. We work hard to emphasize professionalism and teamwork. It is my job to get information out to the scouts in a professional and timely manner. I’d like to think we do that as well or better than anybody in the league. We’re heavy into computers. It’s a great tool and a great organizer. We are very attentive to every little detail. As long as I’m the Director that will always be the case with our scouting department. I feel like I’ve gone a long way in the evaluation of talent, that I’ve learned very quickly what this staff is looking for and I feel solid with my abilities to continue doing that. So within the Denver Broncos organization I feel like it was a little bit of a hump to get over but with most of the scouts that were on our staff. They were already here, they already knew me, they knew what I had brought to the table as an assistant within the department. I felt they were, for the most part, comfortable with the decision. I felt outside the league, I’m sure every body was saying "who in the heck is this guy? What were they thinking?" All I can do is do my job with regard to the Denver Broncos to the best of my ability. With continued success, in time, hopefully the word will get out to people that this guy is sharp, works hard and the Bronco scouts going to school prepared, they come to the Combine prepared and they have good drafts. That coaches that come through Denver will notice our department and go on to other jobs saying that the scouting department at Denver is prepared and is first class.

TS: Personally, I regard the department like an intelligence unit in the Air Force, we are going to gather every single piece of information that we can possibly gather out there, concentrate on the hotspots, or the players, and within the hotspot we are going to find out everything that we can possibly find out. I’m going to pass that information on to the decision makers in an organized and professional manner, act as an adviser so to speak, and do everything I possibly can to assist the general, or the head coach, in making the necessary decision. That’s kind of how I run the scouting department. I hope that with regard to my peers out there, that information trickles out to them. I respect a lot of guys that are out there and the amount of time and experience they put in to get to where they’re at in the NFL. I don’t take my job lightly. I know that it’s an important part of the system and a lot of people within the player personnel career field have worked long and hard to attain their positions. I really respect the Haley’s of the world and the all Directors that are in the league who have the experience that I don’t have. I hope as I go along that I get an opportunity to work with some of these guys on the league committees, at the Indy Combine and other opportunities to learn from them. There’s a lot to still be learned. There’s a lot that a younger guy can bring to a job like this if you have the proper background and training as well as a passion for the game.

TS: You’ve got to be held accountable. As an Air Force intelligence officer, it was my responsibility to be held accountable for what did you see. I had to be able to verbalize it and write it down. It’s no different than what I’m doing now as the Director of Scouting. So many things I did in the Air Force are parallel to what I do now. Evaluation of personnel at the Air Force level involved taking different critical factors and specifics of the job, putting a numeric value to them and then being able to summarize the numbers in a verbal format. Then the commander can read the personnel report and get a good visual picture of what each man is doing in his job. How different is that from scouting a football player so the head coach can read a summary and get a mental picture of how this guy plays the game? When you are an Air Force officer the decisions you make affect peoples careers and lives so it is paramount to be attentive to details in the decision-making process. You can’t take that part of your job lightly as an officer, and it’s just kind of spread right over to what we’re doing now with the Broncos. The 7th round guy has to be covered as concisely and precisely as a 1st round guy.

TS: We belong to National (National Football Combine Scouting Service). I find the Combine an invaluable service to a football team. I know there’s some Scouting Directors and General Managers out there who think they can get as much done on their own as they could belonging to a combine. I find that National and the initial information that they give us is invaluable. I really do. They allow me to scale down from 10,000 draft eligible seniors every year down to a workable number of about 600-700 college players. I have enough confidence in the scouts abilities on the National staff, to give me a broad base understanding of what a guy can or can’t do. It is important to remember that they’re scouting for the NFL, not the Denver Broncos, so I must be cautious with the give and take of information. National’s information allows me to narrow it down a little finer and send my scouts out looking for players to fit our system not the NFL. There’s going to be guys out there that are going to get drafted and people love and they’re are good football players. But we want players who are going to be good Denver Broncos, not good Tampa Bay Buccaneers or good Indianapolis Colts or good Green Bay Packers.

TS: I represent the Broncos on several NFL Committees. As a member of the National Football Combine Executive Committee we address all issues concerning the combine scouting service. As a member of the Combine Selection Committee we determine the process to invite the top college football players to the Indy workouts. The actual logistics of coordinating and operating the workouts and interviews is handled by Duke Babb and his Tulsa, OK, based National staff.

TS: You are right - we brought in a "mondo" track surface which was laid down over the Astroturf. No, it was not well received at all. The idea was to stimulate the athletes to run their forties at Indy. In recent years players were not running or working out (in some cases) due to the advice of agents. The rumor was that Indy is a slow track so guys avoided getting a bad time. The truth is that it is a standardized environment, every condition is equal for all players. The Colts laid a new carpet in the RCA Dome this year and its a fast track. To promote players to run and workout Jim Harbaugh and Marshall Faulk sent letters to each prospect telling them how nice the new turf is this year. We also send a note from the NFL to everyone to encourage participation.

TS: Well, each team has their own favorite methods of evaluating players. The prospects will take psychological exams, IQ tests, individual interviews, a general videotaped interview for all teams, and most importantly, the physical exam. We really enjoyed the video interviews last year and focus on the physical exams. We send four doctors and three trainers to check these guys out very thoroughly.

TS: This is a tremendously expensive event. Each team pays dues of $40,000. in addition to individual team expenses. For example, our coaching staff will be there for the days that their respective positions are being worked out, our medical staff, our administrative staff, and the scouting staff. The NFL kind of takes over downtown Indianapolis for about a week.

TS: As you know we are members of the National Football Combine. Other "National" members include: St. Louis Rams, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, San Diego Chargers, Tennessee Oilers, Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots, Arizona Cardinals. The other combine scouting service is BLESTO. I am not sure, off the top of my head, which teams are members but I can tell you that Jack Butler is the Director of BLESTO and he serves on the Selection Committee for the Combine. Several teams remain completely independent from utilizing the combines.

TS: It stays pretty busy right up to draft day in April. The next step will be watching a lot of video as I finish the fourth "Office" check of the "talk-about" grade players so I can grade them as another step in the evaluation process. Then the scouting staff will compile all of our data and information for our reports. We make a point to have professionally prepared documents to distribute to our scouts and coaches. Following the reports will be meetings between our scouts, both coordinators and the position coaches. The Directors and Head Coach are in on each meeting. This will take a week or so in mid-March. Our area scouts then head home and the Directors will meet with the coaching staff and Mike right up until draft day. These meeting will be to prioritize and finalize our "Draft Board" and decide which players could fit our system, mesh with our organization, and possibly become Broncos.

TS: Thanks, by the way I really enjoy reading THE WAR ROOM. You guys are right on with the NFL personnel issues, it is valuable information.