I go way, way back … back in the day where you didn’t have all of this time to prepare for the NFL draft. The drafts were earlier. You just had to look at the tape and see who was a good player. I think that was really the way to do it.
As time passed and I evolved, for me, the character was critical. It’s not about just bringing in talented guys. There are a lot of talented guys in college. There are a lot of talented free agents that you can bring in, but is the guy going to fit into your team? Is he going to make your locker room better? Is he going to do things the way you want them done?
That, to me, is huge. We did a lot of work on that when I was with (former Tampa Bay general manager) Rich (McKay). We did the same thing with (former Indianapolis general manager) Bill (Polian).
We had our scouts do all of the background checks and the legal checks, but more than anything I wanted to find out from the academic adviser, find out from the equipment men, what kind of person is he? How is he going to be in the locker room? How is he going to be doing those tasks that aren’t fun, that aren’t easy and to me, how a guy did in class.
I wanted to know if the player tried. Did he go to class? Was he always a pain in the neck, barely eligible, not doing the things he was supposed to do? I’m not saying that everybody has to be an A student, but if part of your job is going to class and staying eligible and doing the things that the academic people want you to do, if you can’t do that, there are going to be jobs that I’m going to ask you to do that aren’t going to be fun. You might not want to do them. That was important to me.
Getting those guys that were of good character was critical.
I remember my second year in Tampa. We needed some playmakers. We were looking at Warrick Dunn. He was a great player. They won a national championship at Florida State, and he was very productive. Everybody said, he’s only 5-8, he’s this tall and this weight. He’s probably not going to hold up. You can talk yourself out of a lot of things. But he was a great character.
I remember calling coach (Bobby) Bowden and asking him if he thought Dunn was big enough to play in the NFL on an every-down basis. Coach Bowden said, “Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if he’s big enough. All I can tell you is that he’s the best player that we’ve ever had here.”
That was good enough for me.
About the Author
