Professional football is a business.
You hear that all the time from NFL players, especially at this time of year when players nearing the end of their careers are unceremoniously dumped with no regard to years of faithful service.
Joe Montana to the Chiefs. Emmitt Smith to the Cardinals. Peyton Manning to the...
It's just business. Nothing personal.
And they're right. It is just business. Fans don't like to hear this, because we live by the game-to-game emotions like players do. We may root for a particular franchise, but what we're really rooting for in-season is a particular team. Don't tell me what makes sense for the long-term — we got the Jets on Sunday, dammit.
But front-office administrators can't be that short sighted. If you're only looking at the next week, or even the next season, with no long-term projection for two, three, four years out, you are doomed.
(Seen Daniel Snyder at any Super Bowl parades lately?)
We normally hear the "it's just business" line when it comes to money decisions at the end of careers. But the business principles apply throughout the entire organization: talent procurement and development. Establishing strong middle management. Empowering employees and establishing a culture of accountability. You look at any successful business in America, and you'll find those bedrock business principles at play. And football franchises are no different.
Except for the draft.
In the draft, football franchises have the single biggest opportunity to establish a successful long-term strategy. You have a captive talent pool with no choice as to where they work, and no real room for negotiation on compensation thanks to last summer's Collective Bargaining Agreement.
It's like if you spent the past few years getting a law degree from Harvard, but instead of being able to play the open market and go to the highest bidder, you went to a fancy ballroom one Thursday night in April and they got together to decide where you will spend the next four years and how much you would get paid — and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
That is the advantage football teams have when it comes to talent procurement. But just like any advantage or power, it's what you do with it that really counts. Businesses all over the world have different advantages — weak labor or environmental laws, friendly tax codes, natural surpluses of raw materials, etc. But just because you have an advantage doesn't mean you'll succeed. You actually need to have the brains (and balls) to turn those advantages into sound strategies and a successful business model.
In the NFL draft, success has to be a mix of first-rounders and later-round success. Look at the roster of the New York Giants, who just won their second Super Bowl in five years. Not only do you have hits with first rounders like Jason Pierre-Paul, Hakeem Nicks and Eli Manning (technically a trade), but Justin Tuck, Barry Cofield and Ahmad Bradshaw were all drafted in the third round or later.
And that's what is at stake in 70 or so days at the NFL draft. Who can you get, and at what value? Remember the goal isn't just the next Super Bowl. It's the Super Bowl after that, and the Super Bowl after that, and the Super Bowl after that. Contending for just one year is nice, but contending every year is so much better.
But how? How do you turn those opportunities into success on the field? There are experts all over these internets that will sell you the secret sauce if you've got the money to buy, but it really comes down to the same basic talent procurement rules of all business.
Rule 1: Talent with poor character will strangle you. Look at DeSean Jackson with the Eagles. He fell to the second round in 2008, the seventh wide receiver selected, because of character concerns coming out of California. Over the next three years, he looked like a steal. Then he decided he wanted to get paid, and things deteriorated in a hurry.
Now Philadelphia needs to decide whether to use the franchise tag for one year and continue the drama, pay him long term and hope he matures, or let him walk and start over. In the short-term, Jackson worked out fine, but those same character concerns from college have now become a major distraction and put the franchise in a quandary. It's not too late for things to work out, but there is also a big risk that the DeSean Jackson era in Philadelphia turns out to be a net negative investment for the franchise.
(Cowboys fans, be prepared for this same scenario to play out with Dez Bryant in a few years.)
Rule 2:. Don't forget who you are. Your draft class isn't walking into an empty locker room. There is already a team in place, and the players you bring in have to fit into what you are, both culturally and schematically. 2011 selections like New England's Nate Solder (first round), Oakland's Stefen Wisniewski (second round), Washington's Roy Helu (fourth round) and Baltimore's Pernell McPhee (fifth round) fit not only the culture that existed within their respective franchises, but were able to plug into the system on the field. They provided the short term lift for 2011 AND are legitimate building blocks for the franchise.
Rule 3:. Don't over-extend to acquire talent. Both A.J. Green and Julio Jones look like great players. But Green cost the Bengals the fourth pick in 2011, while Jones cost the Falcons the 27th, 59th, and 124th picks in the 2011 draft, and the 22nd and fourth round picks in the 2012 draft. While Green and Jones may both go on to have great careers, the Bengals had to expend fewer resources to acquire him, and as a result have more opportunities to set themselves up for long-term success. The Falcons, meanwhile, may have the best 1-2 receiver duo in the game, but are at a disadvantage in building the rest of the team.
Rule 4: Look for undervalued assets. While you don't want to pay above-market prices for talent, you absolutely want to look for talent that you can acquire at below-market prices. The Patriots' two tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, were second- and fourth-round picks, respectively. Gronkowski was coming off a lost season at Arizona because of a back injury, and Hernandez had some maturity concerns coming out of Florida (different concerns and price tag for Hernandez make it a different situation than Jackson). The Patriots took both and hit the jackpot.
(Note from future draft preview article — I'm putting University of Arizona receiver Juron Criner on the all-value list for this year.)
Rule 5: Don't get too cocky. Since we're heaping praise on the Patriots for Solder, Gronkowski and Hernandez, let's remember also that they have serially under-performed in drafting defensive backs and wide receivers. I think you can chalk that up to the arrogance of Bill Belichick and the assumption that the superiority of the system can transcend the lack of a superior skill set. At some point, you have to get your ego out of the way and just draft the big, fast, tall guy who catches the ball really well. It's like recently retired St. Louis Cardinals manager (and Belichick buddy) Tony La Russa hitting the pitcher eighth. There are aspects of conventional wisdom that aren't total BS. Try them once in a while.
Prospects will be broken down to extreme over the next two months. And on draft day, NFL franchises will make their biggest investment of the year. Blow this opportunity, and it may cripple you for years. Hit it big, and you may be picking confetti out of your hair.
It's just business, but the stakes couldn't get any higher.
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