It may seem backwards due to narratives and perception, but the scouting changes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic may actually serve to benefit New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman in the 2020 NFL Draft.
While cherry-picked photos of Gettleman’s home office setup continue to go viral and folks who don’t know how to mute their phones during conference calls take pot shots at him, it may be Gettleman who gets the last laugh.
Because scouts have been pulled off the road, there are no Pro Days, there are no private meetings or workouts and all contact has to take place virtually, NFL teams will be forced to rely heavily on their ability to process word-of-mouth data and film. As a result, general managers from around the league are laughing off mock draft projections by the “experts” due to how wrong they are likely to be.
I had a GM tell me, “The media is wronger about mock drafts this year than you guys have ever been.” Point being, players are going to be taken in places no one expects. https://t.co/oyDHSndqkl
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 17, 2020
Although the league is now largely working in a virtual setting, these changes will play right into the strengths of Gettleman, who is a stickler for old school evaluation and now has a coaching staff featuring a slew of former college coaches with firsthand information on prospects.
“I’ll tell you what, it’s a big help,” Gettleman said during a Friday conference call. “If you think about it, we hired (Former University of Alabama Running Backs Coach) Burton Burns, Joe hired Burton to coach the running backs and he’s been at Alabama, so just think about all of the insight we get into the ‘Bama kids.
“Obviously a number of our coaches are coming directly from the Southeastern Conference. So, you’ve got great contacts. It’s very helpful, it gives you insight, all of the information. Our college scouts do a great job of digging out information, so between the information the college scouts have, and Burton, and fellas like that that we’ve hired that are coming from college, it sure really gives us a good in.”
Which player is selected where will rely more on how good of a football player they are, and less on what straight-line numbers they put up at a Pro Day, how their body language reflects during nervous interviews or a potential misspeak during an interview.
That’s good news for the Giants because, despite all the knocks against him, Gettleman is a great pure talent evaluator and doesn’t put as much emphasis on the other things as some across the league do. This is his bread and butter, and you had better believe he’s going to make the most this opportunity with his job potentially on the line.
[lawrence-related id=644949,644982,644922]