Behind the curtain: NFL teams reveal how and why of 2023 first-round
picks
Send a link to a friend
[April 29, 2023]
Even as media misfired and public debates raged about the
first overall pick, Bryce Young was No. 1 on the Carolina Panthers'
draft board for more than two months.
C.J. Stroud went second to Houston, standing tall as the precise
pocket passer his game film and production indicated and not
withering under a barrage of published reports that he scored poorly
on cognitive tests and led the Texans into a mindset of waiting for
the QB Class of 2024.
Clarity and sanity arrived in hefty doses on Thursday night,
bringing insight and hindsight to the mockery of the pre-draft
buildup.
We clear the runway with a peek behind the curtain in how the
decisions played out in draft rooms.
--Panthers paid price to get Bryce
There was one player the Panthers wanted in the 2023 NFL Draft more
than any other. They rated Alabama quarterback Bryce Young as the
No. 1 player in the class by a wide margin in pre-combine meetings
more than a month before general manager Scott Fitterer executed a
trade with the Chicago Bears to gain full control of the board.
"We're watching film. Scouts are talking about Bryce Young," Frank
Reich said of his first draft meeting as Panthers head coach in
February. "And basically, Scott proposes a question at the end of
that meeting, like, 'Hey, so, if we trade up, where's our
conviction?' And it was unanimous with every guy in that room,
starting from Scott on down, that Bryce was the guy. That was great
for me to hear."
Reich knew too, as soon as he logged a few video hours with the
clicker watching Young execute the Crimson Tide offense without his
frame -- 5-foot-10 1/8, 204 pounds -- causing issues.
"You just watched the tape. There's a lot said about the size,"
Reich said. "At the end of the day, there are a lot of factors that
go into it. But we're coaches; we're scouts. We watched the tape.
And when you watch the tape, Bryce Young is the best player."
--Texans not passing, hammer gas pedal to take QB C.J. Stroud
Here's the thing about negative stories before the draft: Motives
aren't crystal clear. But almost always, a reason can be gleaned for
late-arriving negative tidbits cracking draft news cycles. This
year, the topic became Stroud's cognition test scores -- the
modern-day Wonderlic evaluation -- which were debunked by creator
and testing company S2 Cognition.
Here's the other thing: Teams know everything about every player on
their board. Area scouts, team security, position coaches, quality
control coaches, head coaches, coordinators, personnel directors and
general managers all pore over available information, investigate
each player's background and any skeletons that emerge for that
player including family, friends and teammates.
By the end of the process, Houston had no problem at all with
Stroud, who averaged an absurd 324 yards and 3.4 TD passes per game
at Ohio State. He was 21-4 with the Buckeyes.
Texans general manager Nick Caserio attended multiple Ohio State
games in person -- the Buckeyes had three top-20 picks Thursday --
and utilized his area scouts to run their own deep dive into each
quarterback in this class.
Stroud helped solidify his pro projection and final draft grade by
putting up 41 points against a salty and stubborn Georgia defense in
a one-point CFP semifinal loss.
"I knew that if the Texans wanted me, they were going to go get me,"
Stroud said. "I don't care about the outside noise. Even after my
playing days, I know I still won't be perfect. But I'm going to make
sure I work my tail off to do the right thing. And you have my word
on that for sure."
--Texans' 2-step
With 1:30 on the clock and the Arizona Cardinals still interested in
a trade partner, Caserio parted with one of his two first-round
picks in 2024 and successfully worked a deal to become the first
team to draft back-to-back in the top five since Washington selected
LaVar Arrington and Chris Samuels in 2000. Samuels was an
All-American left tackle at Alabama, which transitions nicely into
the player former Alabama linebacker and current Texans head coach
DeMeco Ryans wanted more than any other in this draft: Crimson Tide
outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr.
With 12 total picks, the Texans didn't even blink or reference
"value charts" while pursuing the top defensive player available.
Anderson had 10 sacks last season to finish second on Alabama's
career sacks list (34.5) and tackles for loss (62), trailing only
Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas.
"It was an opportunity to get a player we thought very highly of. We
knew he wasn't going to last. We felt that adding him to our
football team is something we wanted to do," Caserio said.
Houston locked in on Anderson before last season, and the deal was
sealed when Ryans arrived and felt like Anderson was the player they
had to have in the 2023 draft. They met with Anderson three times
since January.
Anderson knew the call was coming Thursday night, he just wasn't
sure when.
"The way they want to use me, it's special. As a 9-technique,
rushing off the edge, go get the quarterback," Anderson said.
--Lucky for the Horseshoe
Indianapolis was chasing quarterbacks, in an order was crystal clear
when owner Jim Irsay spoke to the need in a press conference setting
in February.
Not many connected the dots between Florida's Anthony Richardson and
Colts general manager Chris Ballard, but perhaps they should have.
Ballard is known as a scout who chases traits, and few prospects in
this class have them at Richardson's level. At 6-4, 244, he ran a
4.43 40-yard dash and showed off a 37-inch vertical. Only 12 players
in the history of the combine have run 4.43 at his weight.
These traits might not shout "quarterback."
The knocks on Richardson are mostly factual and statistical analysis
warranting context. Yes, he has only 13 career starts. But pointing
to poor production is only valid when mixing in the footnote he
played for multiple coaches and three offensive coordinators with
vastly different plans at UF. He's also the youngest of the prized
quarterback prospects in this class.
We don't yet know if he's a passer. We know he's a bull as a
ballcarrier, part Cam Newton and elements of Daunte Culpepper.
Can you say potential?
A HR swing by Ballard and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen
signals the joined belief they can get Richardson pointed skyward to
reach his immense ceiling. Steichen was instrumental in the early
success of Justin Herbert with the Chargers and critical to Jalen
Hurts' success with the Eagles.
Neither of those players ever reached 21.2 miles per hour on an
80-yard touchdown run in college.
The affinity for Richardson isn't recent. Ballard said scout Morocco
Brown sent him a text from Gainesville last August touting "the show
I'm seeing right now," and he was observing a 20-year-old Richardson
at Florida's practice. When Steichen arrived, he called Ballard
early in his film breakdown of prospects to share what he was seeing
with the Gators' QB and sounded almost exactly like Brown did months
before: "there's not many guys that can do what Anthony Richardson
can do."
"He's a pretty unique athlete and talent," Ballard said Thursday.
[to top of second column] |
--Hall of a DB
Troy Polamalu played for Pete Carroll at USC and was an eight-time
Pro Bowl selection with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Comparing any
prospect to the Pro Football Hall of Fame safety sounds like
sacrilege, even when it's coming from Carroll.
But the parallels between Polamalu and Illinois All-American
cornerback Devon Witherspoon are everywhere in Carroll's trusted and
thorough evaluation.
Pre-draft assessments of what the Seahawks might do in the first
round almost always miss, so when GM John Schneider used his first
top five pick since his Green Bay days on a feisty cornerback, not
many saw it coming.
Carroll was finally able to spill a lovefest explanation on Thursday
night.
"He's a rare player," Carroll said. "Since the years we've been
here, we haven't seen a guy like this. We have not drafted corners
high just because we haven't come across a guy of this makeup. It's
his athletic ability, it's his speed, it's his playmaking, it's his
mentality. I haven't come across a guy like this in a long time. The
last time I recognized this kind of makeup was back at USC when we
had a guy that you guys may know. Troy Polamalu was a guy who had an
extraordinary way about the way he played the game, and I saw this
connection between what Devon does and how he looks at the game and
how he approaches it that just knocked me out."
Consider us KO'd, too.
--Bears down, and down
Chicago swapped out of the first overall pick in the deal with the
Panthers that netted a No. 1 wide receiver, DJ Moore, and a spare
first-round pick in 2024.
But when the Bears moved again, sliding from No. 9 to No. 10 in a
trade with the Eagles that allowed Philadelphia to select Georgia
defensive tackle Jalen Carter, general manager Ryan Poles
essentially passed on the top 10 players in the draft multiple
times. Already, diehard Chicagoans are fearful the 2023 draft might
be remembered for who the Bears didn't draft.
"I won't comment specifically on him, but character is always going
to be important to us," Poles said Thursday of passing on Carter,
who some rated the No. 1 talent in the draft.
With the 10th pick, Poles, a former NFL offensive lineman, selected
Tennessee right tackle Darnell Wright, a 6-6, 335-pound specimen who
can also play the left side.
A four-year, 42-game starter, Wright and the Bears have been in
close contact for months. He was identified by Alabama pass rusher
and No. 3 pick Will Anderson Jr. as the toughest player he faced in
college.
Wright played on the Senior Bowl roster of Chicago offensive
coordinator Luke Getsy, met with the team's brass at the scouting
combine, visited Halas Hall on a "top 30 visit" and then cemented
his status in a private workout attended by Poles and conducted by
Bears offensive line coach Chris Morgan.
Poles rarely attends private workouts. This was an exception,
seeking conviction the day before Easter that Wright was the right
choice. Before and after, Poles said he knew that session in
Knoxville would be "a really big piece."
"There's a mental toughness that you have to have to play this
game," said Poles. "We brought him in deep water to see if he could
swim or not, and he accepted the challenge and he showed us the grit
and the mental toughness to be able to fight through fatigue and all
those things that we look for."
The plan was to get Wright comfortable on his "home turf" in
Tennessee, then make him as uncomfortable as possible with tests of
mental and physical endurance. They ran him to the whiteboard to
challenge his ability to make calls if a QB or coach changes a call
while a playclock ticked down, asked him to draw assignments -- his
and others -- on plays he was given minutes earlier and articulate
the basis for his answer. Then they did the same exercise on the
field, moving reps faster as if in no-huddle without more than 10
seconds to recover. In between, he needed to decipher the call and
verbally explain his assignment.
Lastly, they looked for body language and focus when the
well-lathered Wright was ordered through a 10-minute conditioning
test.
"He stayed aggressive, finished. Again, that attitude we're looking
for up front," Poles said. "You're always looking to be convicted
about things, and that was the final box we were able to check and
feel good about it."
Wright recalls the individual workout that cemented his ticket to
Chicago from a slightly different perspective.
"He kicked my ass, if we're being honest," Wright said. "He wanted
to see what I was made of. It was hard, but I didn't quit. I think
he respected that. He put me through the ringer. We were out there
working. He just wanted to see if I'd quit, and I wouldn't quit."
--Late and often
Patriots coach Bill Belichick is the coupon shopper of draft
decision-makers, and he moved down a few spots again Thursday only
to come away with Oregon's Christian Gonzalez, the top-ranked
cornerback in the class on some boards. New England pocketed an
extra fourth-round pick in the deal.
Gonzalez was there at No. 17 after director of scouting Eliot Wolf
helped New England work the trade to move down with the Pittsburgh
Steelers, who wanted Georgia offensive tackle Broderick Jones.
"I'd say overall there probably was some surprise that he lasted as
long as he did," Patriots director of player personnel Matt Groh
said. "But we've got our players stacked the way we got them. We
can't predict what anybody else is going to do."
Groh said meeting Gonzalez at the combine and getting more
comfortable with him as a person during a "top 30" visit to
Foxborough helped solidify his place on the team's draft board. New
England drafted four players from its top 30 list in 2022.
It didn't hurt to have offensive line coach Adrian Klemm's input on
Gonzalez. Klemm was associate head coach at Oregon in 2022.
"You know you're getting the truth on the player, good and bad,"
Groh said of Klemm's unique perspective. "There's that comfort
level. Coach Klemm was with Christian, call it eight months, so
definitely a great resource."
Including the 120th pick received from the Steelers on Thursday, the
Patriots now have six picks between Nos. 46 and 135.
--Star stopper
Only 11 players were given first-round grades by the Dallas Cowboys,
who passed on temptations to move up before a run of four
consecutive wide receivers from Nos. 20-23.
Head coach Mike McCarthy was behind the push to add more physical
and powerful players in the trenches, and defensive tackle Mazi
Smith's game is all about both. The Michigan standout should step
into a significant role immediately and help Dallas patch a defense
that ranked 22nd in the NFL against the run (129 yards per game).
"I think we said it earlier, when Mike came in here he talked about
building a bigger, stronger, faster football team," vice president
of player personnel Will McClay said. "We have continued to do that,
and when you look at Mazi ... teams run the football now and you see
things change. You look at our division, he's a guy that can stop
that, a guy that adds value to our defense as well."
--By Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |