Hello, and welcome to the Commanders Today Podcast. I'm Julie Donaldson. We are less than two weeks away from this year's NFL Draft out in Las Vegas, Nevada. Head coach Ron Rivera and company are hard at work preparing for the team six picks, the first of which coming eleventh overall. Washington has spent their previous two first round picks on the defensive side of the ball. Will that be the
case again? This draft our logan Paulson sat down with the head coach to learn more about the strategy behind the draft process. Coach, last time, I got to talk to us at the combine, and I think a lot of fans think that's like the start of draft season, which it is, but you guys work on it year round. How is the post combine process for your Pro Day's top thirty visits? What do those things give you that
maybe you don't get at the combine? Well, I think probably the biggest thing that happens when you go to the combine, you know, you do the speed dating thing twenty minut to talk to a guy and can you move on to the next player. Now, once you get into this phase of it, there's an opportunity to really get to know these guys, not just on tape, not just on Washington and workout, or not just in that
twenty minute speed dating. Now as an opportunity that you guys that you're really interested, guys that you're intrigued by, our guys that you want to know more about. You can go spend time with them and go watch them work out. You can send coaches, you can send scouts to dig a little bit more. And then we have the thirty visits bring a number of the guys in that you even want to get to know even more about, or guys that you want to have a medical check
on with your own doctors. So this is an opportunity for us to dive in as to who these guys are as not just football players, not just as athletes, but as young men as well. Yeah, as a player, I'm not that familiar with the thirty visits. I didn't go on one. What are you doing with them on these days? Obviously? The combine you said, it's that speed dating, you get film, you get all these different kind of structured elements. What's different? I mean they're here all day.
What do you do right? Well, what they do is they'll come in the meet with different people as far as we're concerned. They'll meet with position coaches, they'll meet with um, the coordinators, they'll meet with me. Then they'll also meet with our Strength and Condition and they'll meet with our director Player Development, and they'll they'll meet with our our our sports psychologists. Okay, just an opportunity for them to just meet, mingle and mix with the different
groups of people as well. UM, They'll they'll they'll they'll meet with some of our interns just because they're picking them up or just because they're helping them with all their travel needs and everything like that. So everybody that's that's here in this building will or could have a chance to help us get to know who these young men are. And do you find that players are different at the thirty visits than they are at the combine?
Are they more relaxed or like? Well, that's what you try to do, is you try to create a positive atmosphere for them to come in and really kind of let their hair down, be very candid about about things and and helps us to really understand even more so than who they are. Right, And I've been on some different teams over the course of my career, and some people use these thirty for these top thirty visits as
a way to kind of mislead other teams. Is there a little bit of games someship going on here or is it? These are all just purely evaluations. Now these are purely valuable. So again, um, you know, it is hard because I do get some people say, oh, you want to throw them off, but you know what, we really want to get to know them because again, you're about to make a serious investment, right and you have to know the ins and outs of who these these
these young men are. And so that's something that I think because you know, obviously teams do use these to kind of throw people off the scent. How do you establish pure draft value because obviously, like you have your evaluations, but you have to know what other teams are valuing. How do you work that out in this process where everyone's trying to mislead everybody. It's no, it's a hack of a question though, just because of the fact that
people do see things differently. Yeah, right, you know, it goes back to that that old saying about you know, if you're gonna buy it, you're gonna buy a baseball card, you know, and it says, well, I want ten dollars a work ten dollars you know, right, Yes, if you're only willing to spend five, then that's what it is. Well, somebody may say, well he's not a first round right, you may say he is. Well, who's right? Who's wrong?
The only time tells. I mean that's the truth, because you don't know if you spend a draft pick on a guy, if this guy's gonna be that guy. Yeah, okay, so everything's everything's a gamble, everything's a crapshoot. I mean because if if this, if if this was a perfect science, okay, then everybody would pick properly. I played with with Richard Denny,
who was a twelfth round pick back in the day. Wow, you know that's the thing you tell people is so so everybody says, oh, you guys were smart for draft to him. Yeah, we have been smart way to take him in the right. So this is an inexact science. And sometimes it's about fit because some guys may go to a team and four years later he's gone, and then he goes somewhere else and he prospers, and he goes Oh, well, why is it? Well, because it's not
fit's a big thing. It is a real legitimate thing, which you know, I mean, if you don't fit an offense, you know, you're not gonna play a lot, You're not gonna get opportunities Austin, you fit an offense. And guess what they're doing. They're throwing the ball to the tight instead of making them a blocker. Yeah right, that's not that's not me, coach, that's not me. So are there any things that you do to kind of mitigate that the risk? You know what I mean? Is it the interview?
Is it the like? What is it? I think, Well, we do a combination things. Obviously, our scouts, you know, they they go and they collect names for the future as well, not just about the guys that are there, but they're collecting names. They're trying to figure out who's guys that they've got to watch, and they'll watch guys for the next few years as well. So it's not just about coming in and you know, it's it's it's these twenty guys are possible draftable guys. It's also thinking
a little bit ahead off. So they start this process and they'll have notes that they'll go back and they'll refer to as they start watching guys. So we get very in depth reports from this group. Um, we have a group of our of our of our top guys that are always out there, you know, starting with Marty Hernie and starting with Eric Stokes, you know, and and
Gribbs and and and then our national scouts. I mean, these guys are the ones that really dig and dive even deeper than everybody else because you know, they're focusing on the now, right, they're the ones that focus on this year's draft more so than than than the area scouts I see. Yeah, And so like for me, for example, like if I watch a receiver, you know, and I see a receiver that doesn't block, he slides down my board because I question his ability, his passion, his love
of the game. Do you have anything that you look at when you're watching film, Well, when I watch tape, and receiver is a good place to start, because you know, it's not just about catching them all. It's not just about running routes. But it's, like you said, it's also about how are you fitting into the offense. Because if you're a guy that doesn't run his routes really hard all the time. Yeah, okay, yeah, that's a little bit
of an indicator. Because if I'm off of safety, I'm going back and all sudden I see that the X receiver's kind of jogging off. It tells me, you know, he's not involved, So I'm gonna look over here, I'm gonna look away from him. Well that's not a plus, that's a minus my book. Why because he's not playing every play as if he's getting the ball. Because if he released hard outside and went vertical, Nowlson, that's safety gets pulled out of the middle of the safety gets
pulled out of the half. Guess what it's just done. It's opened up a whole portion of the field. So when I watch tape, I watch tape with a specific thing in mind. There's certain positions that I'll watch during two minute drills on Make sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms and watch Washington Football Today weeknights, five thirty ten pm on NBC Sports Washington. Thanks for listening.