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Late-round staffing Assistant coaches can shape a team's draft strategyPosted: Monday April 08, 2002 12:51 PM
Teams have recently completely their comprehensive search for information on all the draftable prospects. Now, as they sort through all the data and opinions, a valuable part of the draft-planning process often gets overlooked: Knowing the individual strengths of a coaching staff goes a long way toward shaping a club's drafting strategy. A great position coach can develop players in a fairly short period of time, so a team can wait to find him a player until later on in the draft. An average coach needs to be handed good players, so a club would look to find help for him early on. This concept gets lost at some clubs, either because the personnel people are going to take "the best available player" with every pick or they don't believe in catering to coaches who tend to change jobs frequently. I feel strongly that the better a franchise understands its staff, the easier it will be to get them players they are each best suited to work with. That ultimately should translate into winning more games, saving money and keeping the coaches from turning over every few years. Take the offensive line position as an example:
If you have this kind of coach, take advantage during the draft. If I were running a club, I would try to lure former Broncos assistant Alex Gibbs out of retirement to be the first million-dollar assistant. If Steve Spurrier is worth $5 million a year, I promise you Gibbs is worth one-fifth of that. I have studied his style of line play and recently spent two-and-a-half hours listening to him at an offensive line clinic in Atlanta. The money that I would save on the bargains he'd be able to work with would more than pay for his salary. Having a guy like Gibbs would allow me to trade down from the third or fourth round and stockpile extra fifth- and sixth-round picks. With a fourth-rounder, two fifths, two sixths and a seventh, I would tell Gibbs to stay home on the first day of the draft and come in the next day and pick his offensive line. That line would block for a 1,000-yard rusher and do a great job protecting the quarterback in no time. Gibbs is clear about what he's looking for, and that would help my team immeasurably in preparing a draft gameplan. For instance, Gibbs doesn't care for height or weight at the interior positions. Guards and centers can be in the 6-foot-3, 290-pound range, as long as they are smart, can run, have clean medical backgrounds and a history of playing hurt. Most of the size goes in the early rounds, so a Gibbs-type player definitely can be found later on. He also likes the idea of converting tight ends into tackles, and that's about as cheap as it gets. Gibbs also disagrees with many personnel people who think the bench press tells them who the strongest players are. Gibbs believes hand strength is more important. With that profile clear in mind, I figure our team could take those extra lower-round picks and draft a pretty solid group of offensive line prospects (see chart below), all of whom should be available. There is no doubt in my mind that this group, after three years or so under Gibbs' guidance, would succeed in the NFL. Just as important, all six would be playing for the league minimum and their combined signing bonus wouldn't equal the money required to sign one first-rounder. That's how to benefit from having a great position coach on a staff. Get him the bargains that he needs and let the rest of them fight over those top three picks.
Pat Kirwan, who spent 12 years as a pro football coach, scout and personnel administrator, is an NFL analyst for CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNNSI.com.
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