If you think Tour pros do a lot of number-crunching, consider what it’s like to be an NFL coach. Juggling rosters. Devising plays. Calculating odds for everything from field goals to fourth downs.
The job requires a ton of quantitative heavy lifting, and not just during the season. Things really get head-spinning when the draft rolls around.
Sean Payton knows the drill.
The current head coach of the Denver Broncos and former Super Bowl-winning honcho of the New Orleans Saints, Payton joined the Subpar podcast to discuss his own golf game, hanging out with Jordan Spieth and, of course, what it’s like for a head coach during the NFL Draft — which is going on right now in Pittsburgh.
“We started at eight this morning [in the war room], we’re on a dinner break now, and we’re on until eight tonight,” Payton said. If not later.
With seven rounds and hundreds of prospects to consider, draft week is merely the culmination of a drawn-out process that begins the moment the NFL season ends. At that point, Payton said, the team’s brain trust has a “front board” meeting to assess the talent pool and the squad’s roster needs. Out of those meetings come what are known as “stacks” — ranked lists of players in each position, along with educated guesses of the round in which they’re apt to be selected.
As the draft itself approaches, and scouts evaluate each player in the combine, the picture grows clearer. Even then, though, a lot depends on how early — or late — you get to pick. Teams with early first-round picks can narrow down their wishlists to just a few players, assured that at least one of them will still be available. Teams that pick later have to widen their scope.
“If you went to the fifth round, now it’s going to be one of 20 players,” Payton said. “The further out you go, it’s like the shotgun buckshot. It just spreads.”
In that respect, the Broncos’ brass have had their hands full this year, as the Broncos have to wait until the 62nd slot of the second round to make their first selection. It won’t get any easier on Saturday, either.
“We hold the last pick of the draft, Mr. Irrelevant,” Payton said. “And the second-to-last pick, that’s Mr. Vice President Irrelevant.”
He was kidding. They’re not irrelevant at all. Unlike the NBA, Payton said, low-round picks often make the NFL, as do a healthy number of un-drafted players. That’s another way of saying that those lower-round picks get careful scrutiny, because they very well might end up on the roster, or wind up as leverage in other deals down the line.
Saturday, the final day of the draft, is moving day on the PGA Tour. For Payton and Co., too.
For more from Payton, you can listen to the episode here or watch on YouTube below.
