The following is from an interview Pete Williams did with Neil Stratton, editor of the leading football trade site Inside the League upon the release of the paperback edition. It's followed by a previous interview with ITL, along with some FAQs asked of Williams during other interviews.
MORE INFORMATION ON 'The Draft'
Sports Illustrated names 'The Draft' its Book of the Month for April 2006. Read review HERE
INSIDE THE LEAGUE: What kinds of things are covered in the book’s new afterword?
PETE WILLIAMS: I cover the 2005-06 Draft season, leading up to the 2006 NFL Draft, much like the book followed the 2004-05 Draft season. Obviously I don’t go nearly as in-depth, but I revisited many of the same events – Senior Bowl, combine, etc. – and for the first time attended the draft in New York, having spent the 2005 draft at the Atlanta Falcons headquarters. I spent a fair amount of time with D’Brickashaw Ferguson, who was a nice segue from the hardcover edition given his University of Virginia background.
The weird thing about the book publishing business is the lead time. I had to file the afterword for the book to my publisher by September 15, 2006. So even though the paperback didn’t come out until March 20, 2007, I had to cut off the narrative in mid-September. At that time, it looked like Todd France was the heavy favorite to land the likes of Calvin Johnson and LaRon Landry. Chris Canty was coming off a great rookie season and looked like he’d be a fixture in the Cowboys’ defense. So much can change in just a few months.
ITL: Now that the book has been out for over a year, are there new things you've learned about the book's subjects that you wished you'd known when the book was being written?
PW: There are always a few details that could have fleshed people out a little better, but nothing substantive. For instance, I recently met a gentleman who had worked with Tim Ruskell in radio when Ruskell just got out of college. He told some interesting stories that no doubt would have added some color to the book. Would they have changed anyone’s view of Ruskell as a talent evaluator? Probably not, but it would have illustrated even further how hard this guy worked – and from where he started – to get to the top of his profession.
ITL: Is there anywhere you wished you would have made an area of focus that you didn't get to fully explore in the book?
PW: I originally hoped to spend more time with ESPN and The NFL Network showing readers the television side of The Draft. TV was going to be a “fifth view” of the book. I was going to portray the NFL Draft process through the eyes of pro teams, college programs, agents, television executives, and the players themselves. In the end, I only had time to focus on four of the five. Given how much the NFL Network has grown – and inspired ESPN to expand its draft coverage all year long – I definitely would have pursued this angle had I started the book in August of 2006 instead of August 2004.
ITL: What kinds of feedback have you received from the contacts you made when writing the book? Mostly positive or mostly negative? Any secrets revealed that people wished hadn't been exposed?
PW: I’ve gotten very little feedback one way or the other and I’ve been a journalist long enough not to read anything into that. Usually people only call or e-mail when something is inaccurate, so I guess my lack of feedback is a good thing. If I were a full-time football writer who regularly ran into these folks, I’m sure I would have heard more.
I have found it interesting that close relatives of several of the central figures have contacted me as recently as the last month asking how they can get copies of the book. The distribution of the book wasn’t the greatest. It’s always available at Amazon.com, of course, and for the least expensive price.
ITL: You admitted a fascination with the draft process that prompted you to write the book. Now that you've been inside the process and are intimately familiar with it, does it still hold a fascination?
PW: Absolutely because it just keeps getting bigger. I knew from the first Pro Day I attended, in March of 2005, that soon at least a few of those would be televised and that’s proven to be the case. When I attended the Senior Bowl for the first time, in January of 2005, I marveled at the tremendous access and lack of media attention and figured it was only a matter of time before the media began to swarm. Sure enough, that’s happened. It won’t be long before someone does a major TV piece on an “Agent Day,” perhaps even a reality show off of one. If you’re a TV executive reading this….you’re welcome.
ITL: Given how rich and layered and varied the entire draft process is, do you feel you could write another book about the draft that covered generally the same material, but told an entirely different story?
PW: Yes and no. By choosing a different cast of characters, it would be a different story. Nearly three years have passed since I embarked on the process and a lot more of the process is in full view now that wasn’t in 2004-05, especially the combine and Senior Bowl. Heck, there’s even significant coverage of several of the combine training centers. But the core of the book – the process, timetable, agent involvement – would be pretty much the same.
ITL: Much of the book focused on the Atlanta Falcons, Rich McKay, and their character-based evaluation system. Looking back on the 2005 Draft in particular, what do you make of the recent struggles of the team?
PW: The ironic thing about McKay and the Falcons is that they’re forced to deal with a player – Michael Vick – who probably wouldn’t have passed McKay’s stringent character evaluation filter had McKay been Falcons general manager in 2001. In fact, if there’s one question I wish I had asked McKay during the book-writing process, it would be how he graded Vick in 2001 while with the Buccaneers. Then again, perhaps Vick’s character issues only have manifested themselves in the NFL, but I’m guessing there were some red flags coming out of Virginia Tech that were trumped by Vick’s incredible talents. Unlike Warren Sapp, who McKay did draft and who has generally stayed out of trouble in the NFL, Vick has had his moments. The other ironic thing about the Falcons is that the other employee who showed some character issues last season – Jim Mora – was a guy McKay did hire. Speaking of character, it’s interesting that all of the guys at the top of the character issue list in 2005 – Pacman Jones, Chris Henry, Odell Thurman, and Maurice Clarett – have had troubles in the NFL. On the other side of the argument, Tony Dungy and the Indianapolis Colts demonstrated that a team of high-character guys produces results.
ITL: What's your next project? Are there any more football-related ones?
PW: I had toyed with writing a book on college football recruiting, but I’m guessing the upcoming book by Bruce Feldman of ESPN the Magazine will do an outstanding job of that. Michael Lewis’ book The Blind Side also covered a lot of that ground. I have several fitness collaborations in the works and I’m kicking around a few solo projects, at least one of which is football related. The appetite for all things football is insatiable and I hope to do another book on the topic.
The following is from a previous interview with Inside the League.
INSIDE THE LEAGUE: What was the biggest misconception you had about the draft? What was the most surprising thing you learned?
PETE WILLIAMS: I didn’t realize what a 365-day-a-year process this was and that NFL officials, for the most part, have exceptional access to college campuses. The evaluation for the 2007 draft, for instance, will start in March of 2006 when juniors are tested, sometimes immediately following “Pro Days” for the 2006 draft class. Of course, scouts are always evaluating players in every class, even at a superficial level. There’s no way, for instance, a scout could have rolled into Georgia Tech during the fall of 2004 and not taken notice of a phenomenal talent like wide receiver Calvin Johnson, a true freshman at the time. Fans probably don’t realize, as I didn’t, that scouts have tremendous access to college campuses. They show up at a football office at 7 a.m., watch film all morning, speak with coaches, compliance directors, academic advisors, secretaries, cops, dorm advisors – and then watch practice in the afternoon. Some schools are more open than others, with some restricting access to certain days of the week or certain parts of the season, but everyone opens the doors to some degree. Given that most coaches stress to players the notion of never looking beyond the next game, let alone the next level, it might seem strange to have a bunch of guys wearing NFL gear standing on the sidelines during practice. If nothing else, it inspires guys to practice hard.
ITL: Al Groh’s attitude toward the agent business (at Virginia) is remarkably progressive. Do you see this ever becoming a trend?
PW: I don’t think so and I imagine Groh probably shares the same frustrations that many of his coaching colleagues have regarding agents. Prior to the 2004 season, he brought in a half dozen agents to speak with his players. They were all representatives Groh endorsed for a variety of reasons, but none of his top five prospects opted for any of them. The University of Virginia faced its first true onslaught of agents in the fall of 2004 – even in 1997, when they had Tiki and Ronde Barber, Jamie Sharper and others, the agent business hadn’t mushroomed to this degree it has today – and Groh felt the need in ’04 for the first time to cordon off the post-game locker room area from agents and take other measures. Still, he does seem quite progressive in how he helps players prepare for the NFL draft “process” throughout their careers. Most coaches just want guys focusing on college football. Groh believes it’s possible to do both.
ITL: Does it surprise you that the head coach of a big-time Division I-A school who is competing at the highest levels and is always challenged to keep his players from leaving early for the NFL has on his staff the poster child for the perils of sticking around?
PW: That would be Groh and assistant coach Anthony Poindexter, of course. I would have thought that would be the case, but in talking to Virginia juniors who left early for the 2005 Draft – Darryl Blackstock and Heath Miller – and a guy who might have, in hindsight, been better off leaving early in 2004 (Chris Canty), all three said Poindexter’s saga had no effect on them. Football players always talk about how if you worry about getting hurt, you’ll play guarded and risk injury. So I imagine Virginia players, even with a highly-visible example in Poindexter, manage to block it out of their minds.
ITL: At times your book really seems to indict the entire player evaluation process. Did you mean for it to?
PW: I’m not sure “indict” is the right word. There’s no doubt there are parts of the process that are downright seamy, from agent recruiting to the Senior Bowl weigh-ins where players are stripped to shorts and paraded on stage to be measured and examined like cattle. It’s also strange that nobody stops at any point between New Year’s Day and the Draft and says, “Hey, shouldn’t these guys be in school or at least pretending to be completing classwork?” Because of pre-combine training, pretty much everyone drops out of school after their bowl games. Some have graduated, but they’re in the minority. It’s kind of funny how these kids are welcomed back to campus for their college “pro days” in March and presented as active members of the program. By then, they’ve been pro for almost three months, accepted all manner of cash and endorsement money – all legal at that point – and haven’t attended a class since December. So in that sense, yeah, the process clearly has made the term “student-athlete” even more obsolete.
ITL: Given your close-up look at the agent world and all its excesses, do you feel that the NFLPA has a handle on things? Do you think they even try to have one?
PW: I’m not sure the NFLPA feels it’s really its role to police the field. Sure, the union has rules and grievance procedures, but a lot of the agent certification process seems to be about generating revenue for the union. Why else would you let 1,300 people register? In the last year, they’ve tried to whittle the field since so many licensed reps don’t have a single client. The NFLPA’s attitude seems to be let the Darwinian process play out and the stronger agents will survive.
ITL: Would you ever become an agent? What compels people to enter such a backbiting world where the barrier to entry is enormously high, there are no guarantees, grown men are forced to grovel for whimsical young athletes, there is no sense of fraternity and success seems to be, at times, capricious?
PW: That’s a great question. No, I would never want to become an agent, though for the purposes of this book I considered taking the agent exam out of curiosity. Like any sports-related endeavor, the agent business attracts those who want to make a living in sports. And if you can somehow latch onto one promising prospect, you can build a business rather quickly, certainly more so than in Major League Baseball since football players don’t play in the minor leagues for years. Another big downside to the job – in addition to those you mentioned – is the babysitting requirement. Because the NFL agent business has grown so competitive, players are able to demand concierge, round-the-clock services from their agents. I don’t know how you have a life in that business and it’s not surprising to find so many agents between the ages of 35-to-45 who have never been married, are divorced, or without children. Then again, the same could be said of the sportswriting profession.
ITL: Do you feel that, if every school had a Brian Battle, agents would still be seen as the bane of college athletics and a destructive and negative force?
PW: It might help. Even Battle will tell you that there’s only so much any compliance director can do and he grew frustrated at Florida State that the litany of state regulations on agents had no teeth whatsoever. But when you have a guy like Battle taking an aggressive approach toward agents, making them register and holding things like “Agent Day,” there’s no question that it has an impact. A lot of players end up going with agents that have at least gone through Battle’s registration process, which means something since it’s a filter of sorts. I don’t think there was a compliance director in the country that wielded the clout and power Battle did at FSU. I use the past tense because Battle left Florida State shortly before the 2005 season to take a job at Georgetown. That seems like a lateral move at best, but it came with the associate athletics director title he didn’t have in Tallahassee. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Battle working as athletic director at a major Division I program within the next five years.
ITL: There was a time when Mike Boyle and Brad Blank had the football world by the tail and now they are largely insignificant. How is it that the business passed them by in such a relatively short time?
PW: I’m not sure either is insignificant and any perceived lesser prominence they have is largely by choice. Blank, like a lot of agents who have been at this for two decades, no doubt has grown tired of recruiting college kids and, given his success, doesn’t need to shake the bushes like he did during the Reagan administration. He still has some prominent veteran clients. As for Boyle, who pioneered pre-combine training, he talks in the book about how he wishes he had capitalized on the business the way guys like Mark Verstegen and Tom Shaw have. But don’t feel sorry for Boyle. He’s done very well working with pro and college athletes. And it’s not like any pre-combine training center is pulling in more than mid-six figures annually anyhow.
ITL: The amount of money being spent on combine preparation (as well as the trainers and state-of-the-art facilities offering it) seems to be growing exponentially. Do you think this can be sustained, or do you expect the bubble to burst soon?
PW: It can only grow so much because there are only so many players. Athletes’ Performance in Tempe, Arizona, has the highest price point ($10,000 a player), and I imagine at some point they’ll have to bump that up a little. But they’ve already reached a point where agents are only willing to send first day-caliber talent there. But there’s no question that it’s a phenomenon that’s here to stay. The agent arms race has created an atmosphere where kids believe they’re at a disadvantage unless they go to the best pre-combine training center they can get an agent to pay for.
ITL: Could this book have been written anywhere but in the Southeast, specifically the Atlanta-Orlando corridor?
PW: Technically you’d have to call it the Charlottesville-Miami corridor, though most of my work in Coral Gables ended up on the cutting room floor. Sure, it could have been done elsewhere, but from a logistics standpoint you’d have to pick one region of the country. Considering the talent in the Southeast during the 2004 college football season and considering the storylines I discovered with the Atlanta Falcons, Florida State, the University of Virginia, and Atlanta-based agents Pat Dye Jr. and Todd France, I don’t think I could have ended up with a more compelling narrative had I worked out of a different part of the country.
ITL: Given all that went into Fred Gibson’s preparation for the 2005 draft, would you say he squandered an opportunity?
PW: You’d have to say that. Gibson, the ex-Georgia wide receiver who was one of two players (Virginia’s Chris Canty was the other), that I focused on for the book, had every opportunity to gain the weight he needed to put on his scrawny 6-foot-4 frame. He wasn’t going to become a more sure-handed receiver in the four months between the end of the 2004 season and the 2005 draft, but he could have gained 10-15 pounds and dropped some time on his 40-yard time. The folks at Athletes’ Performance, where he trained, have a track record of doing that - even with lesser talents. But Gibson didn’t seem to grasp the importance of the training. He thought his college career, raw talent, and gregarious personality would carry the day. It didn’t. Not only did he go late in the fourth round, long after where he was once projected, but he was one of the highest-drafted players cut. After his release by the Steelers, he spent the year on the Dolphins practice squad.
ITL: It seems that no matter the caliber of player, everyone secretly believes he’ll go much higher than he eventually goes. What do you attribute this to?
PW: Part of being a successful athlete is in believing that you’re much better than you are. It’s always sad to see some once-proud jock hanging on long past his due date, still believing he’s 25 years old. The same is true with NFL hopefuls. No matter how much they’re poked and prodded and asked about the same consensus weaknesses and physical limitations throughout the draft season, in their mind they’re still the best at their positions. I imagine you have to have that mentality to succeed in professional sports.
ITL: Is it a little duplicitous that the Falcons are almost preachy about the value of character in the evaluation process, yet in the final analysis, they fall in love with and draft a player they evaluate as no more than average character-wise on and off the field?
PW: The Falcons rank every player A-to-F in both “personal character” and “football character.” For the 2005 draft, they had a number of players that scored the average grade of “C” in one or both. (No Falcons draftee earned a “D” or “F.”) Given the significant number of players the Falcons gave a “D” or “F” to in one or both categories in 2005, you’d have to say they’re paying more than lip service to the character concept.
Other 'DRAFT' FAQs:
What inspired you to write this book?
I’ve always been fascinated by the NFL Draft. Not just the overwhelming popularity of the event – or “pseudo event,” as it does not involve an actual athletic contest – but rather how the draft stocks of many players rise and fall, often dramatically, during the four months between their final games and the draft itself. I often wondered how agents recruit talent, how NFL scouts evaluate players, how college football programs try to keep the focus on college football, and how the players navigate the process. This four-pronged approach became the basis of the book. I wanted to show a year in the draft from the first week of the 2004 college football season through the 2005 draft. Admittedly, it’s more of an eight-month period, though I do touch on contract negotiations, mini-camps and roster cut-downs. So in that sense, it’s a year-long story.
What’s the biggest fan misperception of the NFL draft?
Fans don’t realize the staggering amount of work teams put in to these selections. It’s tough to imagine a more thankless job than that of NFL scout. It offers low pay, marathon hours, and brutal travel. Then when one of your recommendations turns into an NFL star, it’s often the general manager or head coach who gets all the credit. Fans tend to focus on a player’s college career when that represents only a fraction of the evaluation. It’s easy to second-guess on draft day.
Why is character so important to the Atlanta Falcons?
Team president Rich McKay and his staff believe a draft hopeful’s character – an umbrella term that includes achievement, academics, citizenship, work ethic, and a host of other factors – is a telling indicator of a player’s future success in the NFL. Every team at least says they factor character into the equation, and many do, but no other team places such a premium on it. The exception might be Seattle, where McKay's longtime colleague, Tim Ruskell, now runs the show. It’s impossible to draft a team of boy scouts, but McKay and his staffs, in Atlanta and previously in Tampa Bay, have had good success in the draft by staying away from problem children.
Is the NFL draft overrated?
There’s no denying the impact of the NFL draft. More than 30 million people tune in to ESPN’s coverage of draft weekend and the network’s ratings grow each year. There’s also no denying that the most successful teams are those that draft the best. From the Los Angeles Rams of the 1950s to the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s to the current New England Patriots regime, the draft has been the cornerstone of success. Because of the NFL’s economic system, there’s no way to have the equivalent of the New York Yankees, a team that can just do it with free agents and trades. The part of the draft that is overblown is the immediate evaluation by the media. Few players make impacts as rookies and it’s often not until three years later that a team’s success or failure in a draft is evident.
Did writing this book give you a new appreciation for Mel Kiper Jr.?
Absolutely. I spent a year living and breathing this stuff and still, on draft day, I found myself scrambling to keep players straight. Mel doesn’t miss a beat. You can tell after the second or third round that most of the other ESPN analysts – all 39 of them – are scraping to offer much insight. So would I if I were in their shoes. But Mel just rolls on, giving chapter-and-verse on some obscure Division II lineman who wasn’t even invited to the combine. It also helps that he no longer has to provide commentary as he did in his earlier days. So he’s less likely to have a guy like, say, Jeff Lageman come back to haunt him. It also should be noted that there are other “draftniks,” most notably the late Joel Buchsbaum, that are just as effective analyzing talent as the man identified as the face of the NFL draft.
How did you choose your cast of characters?
When I mapped this out in the summer of 2004, three factors guided me. First, I wanted to pick the people who would be the best stories. That wasn’t evident at the time, though I had some ideas. Secondly, I had to consider logistics. This was going to involve a significant amount of travel. Before I even considered travel expenses, I had to first plot a schedule that was at least logistically possible. Since I live in the Tampa Bay area, I figured I needed to stay in the southeast. Finally, I needed people that would grant me access and put up with my frequent intrusions into their busy lives for a year.
Within each of my four groups – NFL teams, college programs, agents, and players – I identified parties that fit the bill. Atlanta Falcons executives Rich McKay and Tim Ruskell (now with Seattle) had tremendous success with the draft in the late ‘90s in Tampa. McKay and Ruskell seemed amenable to my book project, as did Atlanta-based agent Pat Dye Jr. Florida State University, as usual, had a talented group of draft hopefuls in the fall of 2004. Brian Battle, the school’s compliance director at the time, was able to open a lot of doors for me in Tallahassee. I thought Al Groh was a fascinating story between his huge network of NFL contacts and the way he runs his Virginia program like a NFL franchise. Not only that, he had perhaps the best draft talent in school history (though Tiki and Ronde Barber, James Farrior, Jamie Sharper and the Class of 1997 might disagree.) Groh, like the rest of the Bill Parcells fraternity, is not known for being media friendly, but he was generally accessible.
How did you select agent Todd France?
I got lucky with France, who in September of 2004 was a relative unknown among NFL agents. I knew I would be spending a lot of time in Atlanta and needed another player rep based there for the book. Several NFL contacts identified France as an up-and-comer. Once I realized that France’s office is almost walking distance from Dye’s and that the two were competing for many of the same players, I knew there was a story. It reminded me of a piece I did for USA Today Baseball Weekly in 1995 about Scott Boras and Jeff Moorad, who at the time were up-and-coming baseball agents with nearby offices in California. From the agent standpoint, France became the story of the 2005 draft, representing three first-round picks – three more than he ever had represented.
Why did you select two relative unknowns – Virginia’s Chris Canty and Georgia’s Fred Gibson - to portray the player standpoint?
Choosing the players was the most challenging part of the process since players were hesitant during the season to talk about being recruited by agents, even though it’s legal for them to speak to agents throughout the fall. Athletes are a notoriously superstitious bunch and part of the hesitation no doubt was a desire not to look too far ahead and “jinx” their pro chances. During the season, I assembled a list of 20-30 players that fit the criteria of compelling stories, Southeast-based, and good quotes, at least as far as their reputations went. As I got to know the players starting with post-season bowl week, I made cuts based on storyline, access, and logistics. Some guys just didn’t have much to say. Since I was interested in learning how a player’s draft stock fluctuates, I avoided guys who were consensus first-round locks. Canty and Gibson, to say the least, saw their draft ratings shift dramatically. Remarkably, they were chosen with back-to-back picks late in the fourth round.
What other players were considered?
A lot of the guys who make recurring appearances in the book: David Greene, Anttaj Hawthorne, Darryl Blackstock, Ray Willis, and Heath Miller, to name a few. Part of the fun of this book was to see how these parties came together. Tim Ruskell, for instance, drafted Greene and Willis, both clients of Pat Dye Jr. “Anything to help the book,” Ruskell told me later, though he also joked that my persistent questioning in Atlanta was part of the reason he took a job as far away as possible, in Seattle. At least I think he was joking.
Who ended up on the cutting room floor?
I spent significant time at the University of Miami, but the Hurricanes didn’t quite fit the storyline. It was something of a down year for them draft-wise, though I thought running back Frank Gore was a compelling story. I also spent a fair amount of time with kicker Mike Nugent and his agent, Ken Harris. There were also people, mostly scouts, who requested anonymity.
Based on the 2005 season, who had a great draft?
Again, it’s probably unfair to make such an early call. But Ruskell got tremendous value in Seattle with linebackers Lofa Tatupu (second round) and Leroy Hill (third). I wouldn’t bet against his other third-round pick, David Greene, especially considering the promise of two third-round quarterbacks Ruskell drafted: Chris Simms (Tampa Bay) and Matt Schaub (Atlanta). Dallas, as expected, got good defensive line value in the first-round with Demarcus Ware and Marcus Spears. But Canty (fourth round) looks like one of the steals of the draft, as does Rob Petitti, the tackle drafted in the sixth round.
Because of injuries, the Falcons draft picks played more than McKay had expected in April. Linebacker Michael Boley, one of the two fifth-round picks, ended up starting most of the season. Wide receiver Roddy White, the first-rounder, showed promise late in the year, though the Falcons still struggled with the passing game. Jonathan Babineaux (second round) and Chauncey Davis (fourth) also played often.
Will there be any follow-up to this book?
I’ve been following the 2005-06 draft season, although certainly not as closely as I did the previous year. I anticipate there will be a paperback version out in early 2007, with an afterward on the 2006 draft and an update on the progress of the central characters from 2005.
