The NFL’s approach to filling up the green room at the draft could soon pivot to including players who will be waiting a while to be drafted.
There was a time when the league invited players who were expected to be hanging around beyond the first night. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, there’s a current appetite to expand the pool of invitations to players who aren’t expected to be picked until the third day, when rounds four through seven play out.
It’s a shift from more recent efforts to ensure that the draft will have players present who won’t experience an on-site free fall. But it’s still unavoidable. Without a clear and firm commitment from a team that it will definitely take a given player in round one, there’s always a chance that (like Will Levis two years ago) the league will invite a player whose wait will extend to the second day.
That’s one of the risks the league took when making Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe one of the 17 players who’ll be at Lambeau Field in nine days. There’s a chance Milroe will be back on Friday.
We’re told that the league was hoping to have a firm 12 players who would definitely be taken on Thursday night, and that the others were regarded as good stories. Still, 16 of the 17 currently have betting odds that point to being taken in round one. Only Milroe is in “plus” territory to be a first-round pick.
It’s fine, as long as the player realizes the risk that he’ll sit there without his phone ringing throughout all of round one. Some players, as Chris Simms pointed out when we discussed the dynamic on Tuesday’s PFT Live, may think that being invited will give them the kind of boost that could lead to the kind of buzz that will prompt an owner to override the scouting department’s obsession with measurables and “value.” Regardless, any player who chooses to show up for the draft needs to rely on something other than presence at the draft as conclusive proof of draft stock.
It ultimately comes down to the agents. Those with sufficiently solid relationships throughout the league will know with a high degree of certainty the player’s ceiling and, more importantly, the player’s floor. Nothing gets an agent fired faster than setting the wrong expectations for the client.
The best agents know. They enjoy the kind of trust and respect from teams that will let them know, yes, we’ll definitely take your guy if he’s on the board. That’s how the most realible floor is established.
Of course, some agents will be tempted to weaponize that information in an effort to leverage a higher selection and, in turn, a bigger contract and a better fee. It’s what makes the development of the right level of trust and respect so difficult to achieve. To earn the trust of the teams, the agent has to be trustworthy.
Most players won’t prioritize whether their agents have that kind of skill when picking one over the others who want to represent them. Once the draft starts, however, it’s the most important aspect of the player-agent relationship. And those players who have agents who know when the window opens and when the window closes will be the least likely to have the kind of experience that will have them muttering expletives when they go lower than they thought they’d go.
