Airports, Workouts and Film: What the Pro Day Circut Means for the Jaguars' Assistant Coaches
The pro day circuit is like no other for NFL coaches across the league.
Pro days have become just a piece of the draft machine, but their importance is not denied. It is where teams can conjugate to watch prospects who may not have been healthy enough for the NFL Scouting Combine, where decision-makers can rub shoulders, and where teams continue finding their future cornerstones.
And airports. Don't forget the airports.
"I've spent a lot of time in Charlotte's airport this year. Charlotte and Atlanta have been great for me," Jaguars offensive line coach Phil Rauscher joked in an interview with Jaguar Report.
Rauscher is in his second draft process as the Jaguars' offensive line coach, a process where assistant coaches are sent to pro days across the country to contribute to the evaluation process.
This year alone, Rauscher has been spotted at pro days at Pittsburgh, Oklahoma, Syracuse, Alabama. He hasn't been alone, either; defensive backs coach Deshea Townsend has been seen at Alabama's, South Carolina's, and Maryland's pro days; defensive line coach Brentson Buckner was seen at LSU's, South Carolina's, and Georgia Tech's, and the list goes on and on.
For the three Jaguars assistants, pro days give them a chance to find out more about prospects at a critical point in the offseason. Considering coaches are fully invested in their own teams during the regular-season, this point in the offseason gives prospects their best chances to make impressions on coaching staffs.
"It's the closest thing to college recruiting I ever want to get to," Buckner told Jaguar Report with a laugh.
"It's actually great from a position coach, that you sit and you watch film, and film always tells you the physical aspect of it. But you really want them to pass the eye test. You know, are they really 6'5"? Do they really have long arms? Are they really flexible? Then also you get the chance to meet them personally, you know, to see how they, how they work, how they work in, in a hyper type environment."
The pro day marathon, which typically kicks off in the weeks following the combine, is no easy task for coaches. Simply imagine Rasucher's frame packing into a small row of seats in airplanes on consecutive days, and you get a perspective for what the pro day circuit means.
For a short period, coaches turn to scouts, traveling from school to school, hitting multiple states and schools in a span of days. Coaches get into town, have dinner with prospects, have meetings the next day, put them through workouts, and attend what amounts to be its own mini combine.
"It's long days. And it's long days in the sense of not football long days," Rauscher said. "Like football long days, you get in, you grind on tape, you get to practice, you have your meetings, and all that stuff. This is more like, you know, get to Point A to Point B while you're studying more about the player.
"Like this is what a scout normally does on a normal day, and you have a new appreciation for their jobs."
Rauscher estimates that at one point during this year's process, he was in seven states in three days, doing homework on offensive line prospects to take back to Jacksonville. And for coaches, this is all on top of their actual everyday roles as position coaches.
"And it's not like your normal job stops. Like then we had to get in and start planning the offseason and getting it all together. So, it's an interesting time, because you feel like you're getting pulled a bunch of different directions. But it's also critical to the success of the football team in the fall."
This part of the draft process is just one layer. What coaches, scouts and general managers see on film obviously takes precedence, but it is what coaches and organizations learn about players during these types of settings that helps them pick from a large pool of prospects and narrow it down.
"For one, you get to see the kid's character, you get to interact with them, you know, it's a chance to see him up live and in person. Just to get your hands on them," Townsend told Jaguar Report.
"Because a lot of times you can see the tape, you can, you know, you kind of get to see a lot of it, but it's nothing like seeing someone move in person, like to feel them come out of a cut, or see what he struggles with when you look at him. So I think that's the big thing again, the opportunity to go on campus and see the kid."
For Townsend, pro days gives him a chance to get to know prospects on a deeper level. He can see exactly how they would function in the defensive back room he and the Jaguars are fostering inside TIAA Bank Field and, most importantly, whether they fit the culture and locker room.
"Yeah, I think a lot you get see if they personality-wise, would they fit or are they a culture fit for us, you know, and that's something big with Coach Pederson," Townsend said.
"And then you know, Trent and the scouts, they do a great job of giving us guys that they feel will fit you know, and then it's just kind of goes ties hand in hand and then when you get a chance to sit with a kid, watch film, you get the opportunity to see how they will handle, you know what we're looking for scheme-wise, can they handle that mentality-wise and then the physical part you know, you just kind of see live and in person."
It is this fit that is paramount in the development of most prospects. Position coaches are the ones most directly responsible for the everyday growth and progress of draft picks, which means pro days are their chances to see how they connect with their potential future picks.
"I don't think there's no general manager or head coach that wants to bring in players that don't get along with their position coach. The position coaches the ones that are with them every day," Buckner said.
"So you want to have that good rapport with your GM and your head coach and they're like, 'Hey, this is what I like, this has got to fit our scheme.' And then trust that they're gonna bring in guys that you want to coach. Now, does it always work that way? No, and as coaches, you coach whoever's in your room. But if you guys most coaches, they want to coach guys that they're comfortable with, and it makes for a better work environment."
For Rauscher, the pro day experience is an important part of his offseason evaluations due to the sheer state of college football. College and pro football are two games that are arguably heading in different directions on offense, which has the biggest impact on offensive linemen.
As a result, pro days gives Rauscher an idea of what to expect, and to know who is able to adapt on the fly.
"How people play offensive line in college and how they play in the NFL are different, you know, so like, you have to go put these kids and guys through some different movements and different skill sets that you may not see on tape to see if they can do it," Rauscher said. "
"So there's certain things you gotta go do that's critical to see if they can get it done. The college game doesn't always translate to the program. If that was the case, every draft pick would be 100% success because you, you wouldn't go wrong. So like, going in there, especially in my position to go work guys out, you could feel their power, you could feel how their foot speed and their hands work together in a setting that's controlled. And then you could see if that will translate to the game on Sunday. I think all those pieces of the puzzle help me and help Trent and help Doug, you know, form an opinion of the kid."
Since the day Pederson was hired in 2022, he and Baalke have stressed the importance of collaboration with the coaching staff during the draft process. It is because of this collaboration that the Jaguars' coaches can know that their efforts at each pro day go a long way toward determining the Jaguars' success.
"That is just letting you know we're working as one," Townsend said. "That's a big thing to kind of how you see it as a coach and how they see it as a scout. How they see it as a front office is important, because we all get to make our input ultimately for the head coach and Trent to make the final decision."
Past pro days have taught each Jaguars coach valuable lessons. For Townsend, he gets a chance to go back to his alma matter to watch Alabama's defensive backs, a trip he looks forward to each season.
"I think the biggest pro days is when I get a chance to go back to Alabama and nobody knows who you are," Townsend laughed. "So I think that's a big one. The fun part is when I go there, you know, they don't know your hand footprint is right down campus, just to realize how old you are."
For Buckner, his pro day memory goes back to 2014. It was during a pre-draft pro day workout at Pittsburgh that Buckner knew Aaron Donald was a future All-Pro player.
"Aaron Donald at Pitt -- a great workout. A lot of people were questioning his size and oh, he's shorter. And then you go to the workout and it's like, Oh my God. This is a generational talent," Buckner said.
"You know, he worked out everything from nose guard to three techniques to defensive end, and some guys even had him working out at outside linebacker, and you just saw in person whereas he doesn't have the classic size and weight, but you just knew he was gonna be a ballplayer."
For Rauscher, though, his pro day memory doesn't take long to remember. For him, it is last year at the University of Kentucky when he put future Jaguars third-round pick Luke Fortner through a workout.
It was there that the two connected and Rasucher knew he could be the type of rookie who could fill a big void left by Brandon Linder, while also playing next to a Pro Bowl guard Brandon Scherff early in his career.
"Luke was everything as advertised. You know what I mean? Like, he was the smart, tough, dependable guy. And like, when we started working on the field, like, the thing about him was he was doing some of the drills wrong. But then you correct him and he fixes it right now," Rauscher said.
"And I was like, this guy's really coachable. Like this guy can adjust, this is what the NFL needs. That's what we need."
