Building the Draft Board: League Executives Take You Inside the Process

PHILADELPHIA - Much has been made about the Eagles' perceived flawed process when it comes to draft preparation so we decided to piece together what it should look like with the help of former league executives.

When it comes to building an NFL draft board, the typical finished product is much more focused than most fans realize.

THE FOCUS

"It's amazing when you start the process you start with about 1,300 names and that number dwindles significantly as you get to the draft in April," Blake Beddingfield, the former college scouting director of the Tennessee Titans, told SI.com's EagleMaven. "That number is going to get to 75 to 125 [by draft night] roughly. This is after all the medicals, all the background is done."

The pool isn't nearly as deep as it usually is in 2021 due to the pandemic so that 1,300 number is much lower. The far more important number, however, remains the prospects in play for a particular team when things kick off in Cleveland next Thursday.

"It's a long process to get to but those numbers dwindle and when you get to draft day, your draft board is really a roughly I'd say about an average of a hundred names on it for those seven picks that you have and usually when the draft is over you still have 15 to 20 names still on that board and the calls start to go out to those players for undrafted free agent type guys," Beddingfield noted.

In other words, in an average draft - seven picks in seven rounds - you could expect to see draft boards at around 100. With the Eagles entering the 2021 process with 11 picks, you would expect that their board is a little beefier than that, perhaps 125-130.

Nick Cesario, the new Houston GM who was Bill Belichick's right-hand man for years, confirmed the New England board was just 75 players in the 2017 draft when the Pats didn't have a ton of draft capital.

"[Eagles vice president of personnel] Andy [Weidl] is very disciplined," a former league executive said. "He's going to have that thing locked down based on the information he's been given and the constraints he's working with."

THE BACKGROUND

And what is the information, absent the obvious like measurables and game tape, that helps evaluators whittle things down?

"You know right now the people outside of the football personnel, outside of the coaches, outside of the scouts are really starting to make their mark on the board," Beddingfield said. "What I mean by that is in a couple of days they're going to sit down with all their doctors. their surgeons, the trainers and they're going to go over every single player that has [medical] issues and those players may get moved off the board."

The best recent example of this is DK Metcalf, the star Seattle receiver that has spawned about 3.5 million angry sports-talk radio calls in the Delaware Valley because he hit the ground running with the Seahawks after being selected seven spots after J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, who has managed all of 14 receptions through two seasons for the Eagles.

The real debate should be JJAW vs. the oft-injured Parris Campbell in Indianapolis because that was the Eagles' debate with the scouting staff recommending the latter, who ultimately went two slots after Arcega-Whiteside.

Metcalf wasn't in the conversation because he wasn't on the Eagles' board, removed as a medical red flag, according to multiple team sources.

Players with significant injury concerns are always a tough call, especially as they fall and the risk vs. reward assessment is adjusted.

"Now there may be a situation depending on the general manager, his philosophy, where they end up sliding a player down," explained Beddingfield. "Maybe the risk or the value of that injury of the player is better in the later rounds and that's that happens at times."

The best example of that in recent years for Philadelphia was Sidney Jones, originally projected to be a top 15 pick in the 2017 draft before a torn Achilles' at his pro day amped up the uncertainty.

The Eagles didn't remove Jones from their board as a medical red flag, feeling a 180-pound, 21-year-old would have no trouble rehabbing that injury with time.

Hindsight says Jones didn't work out in Philadelphia but the original Achilles' injury really had nothing to do with it.

The concern with Metcalf was over a previous neck injury which can be tricky and the Eagles were hardly the only NFL team that didn't have the now Pro-Bowler removed from their board.

There are many other reasons players are eliminated as well. Back to Beddingfield:

"Sometimes a player is completely taken off the board so people outside the normal personnel are now having their influence on these players outside of the trainers and orthopedic surgeons and doctors, you're gonna have maybe your psychologist if you have a team psychologist," the longtime executive said. "... you're going to sit down and go over all the players that they interviewed throughout the process, You're going to have the FBI, the local or state police reports on some of these players and that could start to change [the perception of the prospect]."

THE BOARD

Once the Eagles have whittled down to the 125-or-so players they believe will fit for new coach Nick Sirianni - both a vertical draft board and a horizontal board is pieced together

"You're going to have a vertical board and you have a horizontal board," Beddingfield explained. "What you're looking at vertically within the positions you may have some slight movement, one player over another based on scheme fit based on maybe a position coach likes this player without any kind of pushback from the area scouts that have already evaluated them.

"So you're going to sit down as a group, coaches by themselves, scouts by themselves, and then group together with the coaches and scouts and start to go over those different tier groups that you may have within the certain position groups."

THE VALUE

Positional value is a big part of the discussions as well and the big three around the NFL remain quarterback, pass rusher, and offensive tackle.

The sentiment remains 'you either get the QB or get to the QB.'

"There are three premium positions in the NFL," Beddingfield said. "Quarterback, left tackle, and pass rusher."

"You need those players," noted Beddingfield. "Very rarely do they come available in free agency so not only are you looking to the draft and the value that the draft would have but it's going to be hard to get those players in free agency next year if that's what you're looking for so you have to value those positions a little bit higher than some of the others."

That might be best exemplified by Andy Reid's first interview in Philadelphia where the now future Hall of Fame coach was reported to say: "I want two offensive tackles, a quarterback, two pass rushers, two corners, and I'll figure the rest out."

"Maybe you can get a receiver or running back and or a safety later in the draft," said Beddingfield. "A depth piece on the defensive line but if you can find a pass rusher, a three-down player. If you can find a left tackle that can be your left tackle for a number of years and especially the quarterback position, those are paramount when you're starting to rank players in the draft.

"The ability to play those positions and play them at a high level really increases their value."

That's a hot-button issue with Eagles fans right now because most want a playmaker to build around Jalen Hurts, an equation perhaps skewed by what went on with the Carson Wentz divorce.

The Eagles have already essentially dropped out of the QB picture at the top of the draft in what some talent evaluators believe is a historic haul at the position. Either way, scouting staffs are expected to do their due diligence on every position, whether it's a perceived strength or weakness.

"You evaluate all players the same. You evaluate whether you have a position strength on your roster right now, you should still evaluate the players the same," said Beddingfield. "Once you start to tinker with those types of things that's really when you mess up the board. I've seen that happen and what you need to do is just stay strong to your beliefs.

"In the Eagles situation, they have a second-year player moving forward that they like and feel that he's the guy but if they value a quarterback whether it's a Justin Fields or a Trey Lance over a Jalen Hurts they need to stay true to their board."

TRADING

As far as potential trading up or trading down - something Howie Roseman has done 26 times, according to the research of ProFootballFocus' Brad Spielberger (10 up, 16 down) the foundation to that is already been laid in the days leading up to the draft.

That work is usually divvied up. Beddingfield was in charge of four or five different teams with the Titans so that's a good template of the workload for Anthony Patch, the Eagles' current senior director of college scouting.

Other key members of the personnel staff under Weidl are director of player personnel Jeremiah Washburn, who is also a direct link to the coaching staff, senior football advisor Tom Donahoe, Weidl's right-hand man Ian Cunningham, and the directors of pro [Brandon Brown] and college [Alan Wolking] scouting.

"I would always be in charge of a number of teams where there are four or five different teams that I called upon myself, maybe the pro director also had four or five teams, a director of player personnel and then the general manager," Beddingfield said. "Depending on your relationship with certain general managers with the opposing clubs, that work is done a week out and you're starting to kind of lay the groundwork of a potential trade whether it's a move up or move back if their player is not sitting there."

Sometimes that work is accomplished even sooner, however.

"Some of those conversations are done at pro days where the general managers get together and have a conversation and start to lay that groundwork," said Beddingfield. "There's so much interaction between the different personnel groups with the teams that it's easy to formulate those type of trade scenarios especially just through talk whether it's at a pro day or on the phone moving toward the draft.

"So a lot of that's done. You know who to pick up the phone and call if you're looking to trade out and those things are made pretty easily."

Once all the work is done there should be little debate on the big night.

THE DEBATE

"When the draft board is set, if the process is done correctly, then no there's no debate," Beddingfield said. "If the process is vetted out enough during the weeks leading up to the draft through the coaching staff, through the scouting staff, general manager obviously, and possibly an owner.

"I've been in situations where the owner had to say that has to be done ahead of time and if you're doing that if you're making that decision within that ten minutes on the clock or five minutes on the clock you have the potential to make mistakes."

The owner, of course, could and has been involved in recent years with the Eagles.

STAY IN YOUR LANE

Maybe the key to it all is staying in your lane, however. That, according to former Packers executive Andrew Brandt, who also once worked under Jeffrey Lurie for a short time in Philadelphia during the Reid Regime.

At the time Reid had complete control of the draft room and Lurie was just a very interested spectator, according to Brandt.

These days the owner has tipped the scales on certain picks, most notably Arcega-Whiteside and Hurts, torpedoing the collaborative structure the owner claims to champion.

And that's a poor way to do business even if the decision on the player turns out to be correct.

"I do think when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, it does create for potential problems," Brandt told SI.com's EaglesMaven. "...You have a scouting staff out there for seven months, bird-dogging every player in a normal non-pandemic year.

"The worst thing you can do when you set up the board. I mean everybody stands on their tables for their prospects. Area scout says he's a second-rounder. Maybe he ends up in the second round of the board, maybe the third round, but it's set. By this time, the board is set."

Going rogue and off the script of that board isn't even about right vs. wrong, according to Brandt, it's about something far bigger than that - a toxic environment.

"The worst thing that can happen to a staff is for a decision-maker or an owner to walk in and say 'eh, we're gonna go here.' You know, jump the board," Brandt. "It's the worst and not the worst for the future of the franchise, maybe the player turns out to be All-Pro but that scouting staff, you can almost feel the air go out of the room if that happens."

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on both PhillyVoice.com and YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen