Seattle plans to "make less excuses" for players

[Mr. Scot]

Seahawks plan to "make less excuses" for players with issues

Quote

G.M. John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll said on Monday that the team has reduced the number of players thl make their final draft board as they look to weed out a greater number of prospects they view as problematic.

“You evaluate your drafts all the time. You’re constantly evaluating what you think you did well, what you need to improve on. I think one of the things we’ve done is it’s really cleaned up. We don’t have quite as many names on our board,” Schneider said. “You have to have certain criteria to be on our board and we’re making less excuses for players, I would say.”

The fact this re-evaluation comes the year after their top draft pick, defensive tackle Malik McDowell, was injured in an ATV accident before training camp shouldn’t come as a shock. McDowell didn’t play or practice once for Seattle last year after the injury and his football future remains in serious doubt.

“We haven’t had a good update in a long time,” Carroll said of McDowell.

Whether it’s been taking some risks on players with character concerns, injury concerns or other issues, the Seahawks have not gotten the return on investment from their draft choices over the last several years they would have liked. Frank Clark, Tyler Lockett, Justin Britt, Luke Willsonand others have become quality starters and contributors and the jury is still out on some players from last year’s class, but they haven’t been hitting at nearly the same rate they did early on in their tenure. That led to a refining of the process.

“At some point, the character stuff, there’s red flags usually on everybody but what happens is you end up kind of ignoring some of those red flags if you feel like you have a specific need or a fit for a player. I think it’s happened in the past, it will probably happen in the future but you just want to limit those,” Schneider said

.The Panthers have taken players with what were considered red flags before, though none too serious (arguably Darryl Worley). Some folks want the front office to be more willing to ignore such concerns and take more chances on "problem child" type players. Many have spoken against what they see as a "choir boys"only atmosphere they believe to be mandated by Jerry Richardson.

With the team now changing owners, there's been a lot of speculation about whether their approach to character concerns could change. My read was that David Tepper might have lightened things up. Ben Navarro, on the other hand, is said to have a similar personality to Jerry Richardson. That would make me think no changes, but Navarro has also done a lot of work trying to educate at-risk youth, so who knows?

Seattle, meanwhile, has decided to go in the opposite direction. They've found that "ignoring concerns and making excuses for players" just isn't getting results.

Do you agree with them or do you prefer an approach more like the Bengals?

[Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D.]

Every player drafted has a certain level of risk. You weigh the risk and reward among all the other factors in the draft. Seattle sounds like they are taking a harder stance on the risk factors.  To say you are going to leave a player off your board entirely is ridiculous.  High risk players in the top 100 picks, maybe not.  But, a player you evaluate as a top tier guy at a position of need falls to the 4th or 5th round.... the reward starts to outweigh the risk. 

[Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D.]

I also think Carolina has a culture and a locker room that keeps problem players in check pretty efficiently.  Take Worley for example.  A month out of our system and he is getting tazered by police in Philly.

[Cary Kollins]

Seattle hit the lottery early in Carroll's tenure. They'll be fighting for third place in their division for the foreseeable future.

[mc52beast]

Don’t really give two f’s about Carroll and his band of misfits. I hope they end up in the NFCW basement and stay there indefinitely.

When drafting players it’s always about “risk vs reward”. If a guy drops to day 2-3 who a GM views as a top player then anything is possible.

Me personally, as long as a guy doesn’t have a history of domestic violence or something else very serious then I take a shot

[Mr. Scot]

23 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D. said:

Every player drafted has a certain level of risk. You weigh the risk and reward among all the other factors in the draft. Seattle sounds like they are taking a harder stance on the risk factors.  To say you are going to leave a player off your board entirely is ridiculous.  High risk players in the top 100 picks, maybe not.  But, a player you evaluate as a top tier guy at a position of need falls to the 4th or 5th round.... the reward starts to outweigh the risk. 

Like Greg Hardy? 

[Mr. Scot]

20 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D. said:

I also think Carolina has a culture and a locker room that keeps problem players in check pretty efficiently.  Take Worley for example.  A month out of our system and he is getting tazered by police in Philly.

To be fair though, a big part of why they have that culture is because they specifically avoid problem players.

Worley, for example. You can say they "held him in check" for a year or two, but they also dumped him.

[d-dave]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Like Greg Hardy? 

I remember he had 1st round talent, but carried a lot of baggage out of Old Miss which drove him down to the 5th round.  Hardy almost made it.  Almost!  But that baggage can come out at crazy times and cause a lot of problems, which he is living now.

[dave-o]

I will enjoy seeing that bandwagon empty...

[Johnny Rockets]

36 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D. said:

I also think Carolina has a culture and a locker room that keeps problem players in check pretty efficiently.  Take Worley for example.  A month out of our system and he is getting tazered by police in Philly.

 They also have a culture and locker room that if I am not mistaken has been at near the top (Or maybe the most with the last 2) of the league in suspensions for failed tests over the last several years. They might not be "problem children" as stated in the OP but they certainly aren't the Richardson choir boys that has always been the narrative for whatever reason. 

With that being said, I don't like the NFL testing so I usually just shrug when someone gets popped for it. 

[Cyberjag]

23 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Like Greg Hardy? 

Solid point, and underscores the need for a sort of balance.  If it were up to me, I would be much more willing to take a flyer on someone with potential character issues in later rounds, but I want choirboys on days one and two.

[top dawg]

Every individual and individual situation is different. I tend to think of the draft and team building like surgery. You never take a steak knife to surgery.

[frash.exe]

if they can’t fold a piece of paper in half more than 7 times they shouldn’t be on our draft board

[jumpman910]

27 minutes ago, top dawg said:

Every individual and individual situation is different. I tend to think of the draft and team building like surgery. You never take a steak knife to surgery.

This is the key, your going to miss on stars if you strictly go the choir boy route. Every situation is different, do your research and vetting on a guy and get a vibe of the people he hangs out with then go from there.

But it's bad business to take a guy off your board before doing research on him. If you do your research and aren't comfortable with it then move on but to just blindly say we won't even sniff certain players is poor evaluating IMO.