The lead up to the NFL Draft is a time when NFL scouts immerse themselves in film and scouting reports, follow prospects around with a stop watch while they run around in underwear and conduct multi-hour interviews with potential draft picks.
It would be interesting to know more about these scouts and what they’re thinking going into the draft. That’s why I loved this story about former scout Dave Razzano, who has gone rouge and given his unapologetic opinion to Yahoo Sports’ Michael Silver about a lot of the guys we’ll see walking across the stage tonight.
Here are the great first few graphs.
“ROSEVILLE, Calif. – The Rogue Scout sits in a small office near the front door of his suburban Sacramento home, remote control in hand. He’s staring at a TV set that’s at least a decade old, examining game tape of one of the 2011 NFL draft’s top prospects, a quarterback who’ll likely be snatched up with one of the first five selections.
The scout has seen this movie before, and he doesn’t like it.
“What does this guy do that anybody likes?” Dave Razzano asks, pressing the rewind button. “Every pass is an underneath curl route! It’s third-and-10 in the red zone – throw a [expletive] touchdown pass. But look at this: A three-yard dump-off. That’s all he does. He threw the ball just about every play, and he had 16 touchdown passes last season.
“This is the guy somebody’s gonna take in the top 10? Based on what? Trust me, they’re guessing.”
Razzano, a respected talent evaluator during a two-decade-plus career with the San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals, is talking about former Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert, and he’s not holding back. He has always given unvarnished and sometimes unpopular opinions – Razzano believes his dismissal from the Rams following the 2005 season was triggered by a heated pre-draft argument with then-general manager Charley Armey in which he denigrated future No. 1 overall selection Alex Smith as a backup-caliber quarterback – and since being fired by the Cardinals following the 2009 draft in an apparent cost-cutting move, he’s been completely unencumbered by discretion.”
It’s great to hear someone destroy Blaine Gabbert. I certainly wasn’t impressed by anything he did at Mizzou, but sadly my Bills probably were and he’ll end up being the Bills new starting QB. FML.
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