Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman
Well, it's almost here. I mean we are about ready to kill each other upstairs. We just had a pretty good meeting and we will continue today and tomorrow. Before we get started, a couple of things I want to mention, again, the work and effort that our scouts put into this, our trainers, our doctors our medical staff, all of our support staff, consultants that we use from our psychological testing. We really took another step forward this year from the analytics and we really grew that department and how we're looking at analyzing some things. I can't thank enough, Jamaal Stephenson and his first time running those meetings as our college director. Things went very smooth. He was very in command of the room, as far as getting everything organized. I've got to give a lot of credit to Scott Studwell, too, for everything he has done to make that transition as smooth as it could possibly be. Stud, as you all know, is a very unique individual and a guy who wanted to take a step back, but then stepped up to make sure everything was as smooth of a transition as you can go when you make that kind of change. And George Paton and everything he does for me and is a great sounding board. Next people, is I can't tell you how hard this coaching staff has worked at this. Coach Zimmer and his staff, we started out when they first started this process down at the Senior Bowl, with the evaluation and the interview process and then at the combine, then all of these coaches going out to these pro days, getting in front of these kids, making sure that these are the right type of players that we want, not only from a character standpoint, but from a schematic standpoint and then coming back in, we met six straight days with our coaching staff and all of our scouts in one room, we went probably anywhere from 12 to 14 hours a day straight. After we got through that process, we brought our medical staff in after the re-checks and listened to our medical staff. We call Sugs (Eric Sugarman) the dream breaker, because he comes in and breaks a lot of hearts, it's not for his looks, but I can't say that. It's a very important part, because there are guys that we potentially have graded very high in this draft class and when they come in and tell us that he's a no take, then he's a guy that comes off our board. We spent a lot of time going through some of these guys that are potential character or problem guys that you have read about, we spent time with them here in Minnesota, we spent time with them out on campus. We want to make sure these guys that have potential character issues, if they're going to be a fit or not. I feel very confident with our psychological team, Les Pico and what he does in the process and the time we spent with these players on if we feel comfortable bringing them into our situation or bringing them into our locker room or not and we have a very good feel on who we would and wouldn't bring in. And there are some players, just to be honest with you, that regardless of where they're graded, whether they're a top round player or potentially a later round that we wouldn't bring in at all even as a free agent. So, those are the decisions that you're trying to make on some of these character guys. Some guys we can say, "Maybe not take at the point at the draft where he could potentially get drafted or is talented, but we'll take a swing if he's still there in the next round." We have a lot of different scenarios that we through from that standpoint. Just talking about our coaches and the one thing that we really did is what you're seeing a lot coming out of college is these linebacker / 3-4 outside linebacker / defensive pass rush specialists / defensive ends, our scouts, when we were in a February meeting, and myself, we identified 13 of those guys, that are potential, what are they? Tweeners. What we did is we sat with our coaching staff, our coaches did a great job analyzing what they thought, our coaches went out and worked these players out and when we came back in our meeting, okay, this guy can or can't play in our system, and that's the most important thing, is that everybody being on the same page and regardless of what's said out there publically, or what you guys do with your mock drafts and stuff, we have a very specific plan on whether a player can play for us or not play for us according to Coach Zimmer's scheme. That was a situation, what we did with Anthony Barr last year. As you guys know, and just reading your guy's mocks that there are a lot of situational pass rushers like that. Some guys we may just go by, just because we don't feel comfortable with them fitting in with what we're trying to do defensively, others are going to come into play for us and that's where it's even better from where we were at this point last year, to where we're at right now, because now we've been through it. I've seen how Coach Zim and this staff coaches and develops players, how are all of our young guys last year responded and continued to get better, so now going into this, we have, I think as an organization from our personnel and our coaching staff all being together and being on the same page on what we are looking for in players. On the draft just in general, and I know you guys will ask me some questions on this coming up, we're sitting at the 11 spot right now, everybody's targeting this guy or that guy, but I just went through five different scenarios this morning, what if a potential pass rushers falls down, what if a potential offensive lineman, and there's multiple offensive linemen that we're looking at, what if a DB falls down, what if the receivers fall down? I can tell you at this point, and we'll have it resolved by Thursday, we are wide open on any direction that we're going to go. There is no one set, honed in, we're taking this position and moving forward. We are going to go, I think this draft is a little unique, after we developed our draft board, and you look at maybe those top five or six players, and how we graded this draft, I think from when you get seventh or eighth player down to the 20th player, I don't know if there's that much difference. We think that they are all very talented, but they are all very close in talent. The benefit to that is that you have an opportunity now to fill a need. If you feel potentially this defensive player or this offensive player at those different positions are that close, then what are we going to do to fill a need, and I think we will be able to fill some needs in this draft by the way that our board developed. The other thing that you really have to look at, and we've been through some scenarios in the second round and the third round and I even threw fourth round scenarios up today, if you go this direction at this position at 11, okay, we still need to fill another hole at this position, where is depth in the second round? Can we still get the depth in the second round or is it there in the third round? So there's a lot of scenarios, where I picked four or five names, the combination of names and what makes us the best football team to improve from last year. As of today, it's very wide open on any direction that we are going to go. As always, I'm looking forward to potentially moving out of that pick if at all possible. I don't anticipate us moving up at this point, but I do hopefully, I would love to get the opportunity to move down and collect more picks. My goal is always to have 10 picks for each draft and one of the reasons for that is, you get an opportunity to move up and down throughout the draft. Right now, I don't know if we have the full ammunition, I don't want to say ammunition, the full currency you need to manipulate in the draft. We may just stick at 11 this year and there's a player that falls to us that is just too good that we're not going to pass, we're just going to take him and see what happens after that. Like every year, you never know what happens on draft day. You try to pick through and analyze and put yourself in a million different scenarios and situations, but you don't know until you actually get in the game and get rolling. Very excited about Thursday to come, like I said, everybody is just ready to move on and get onto the game. I know we're going to be able to add some football players who are going to be of tremendous value to this franchise.
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Q: What kind of analytics are you looking at?
A: We just took the next step.
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Q: Is that working with an outside group?
A: We hired a consultant outside and I don't want to get into it, because I think we're doing some unique things from an analytics standpoint and this guy, I'm not going to say if it's a guy or a female, but this person is a lot smarter than I am in spinning numbers. It was very interesting the concepts that they came up with. This is what this guy's profession is and we have Scott Kuhn, who is one of our pro scouts and Mike Band, who works in our office and really does a great job on the analytics side, taking all this information and you have to have someone translate French to English, so let's say the analytics guy is English and he is talking about GR-3 algorithm, to be honest with you, I don't know what the heck that means, but then they can explain to me, maybe a little bit more where it can come down and I can understand it, but again, I'm so smart then I have to take it down another level to explain it to Coach Zim and the rest of the staff, but no. It's something that we just finished up, they've done a great job, we've looked at the drafts over the last five or six years. It entailed all of the players that are currently in the NFL and it entailed a lot of the data that we have collected in numerous areas and kind of came up with just different things on, make sure this guy is from an analytic standpoint. It's more used for breaking ties, okay? We've had multiple discussions on three or four guys at a position that are clumped in and I've got eight different opinions on those guys, the analytics will kind of tie in and kind of help break those ties a little bit on potentially from an analytical side, you're always going to go back and go what you know on the tape, and you're going to always make the decisions based on your experience and your gut, but the analytics really came in and it played a part in drafting (Jerick) McKinnon last year. It does have some value, it's not the be all end all, but it's another tool that I think, the more and more we use it and the more it evolves each year, it's becoming a pretty good tool for us.
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Q: Do you want to collect more picks because you've had a lot of success doing that in recent years?
A: I just look at it as an opportunity, when you're collecting picks in that third day, especially when you get into those sixth and seventh rounds, I think those are very valuable. My philosophy, if you have two or three, four picks in those sixth and seventh rounds, you can take those best players that are down at the end of your board and you don't have to go out there and compete after the draft in free agency. To me, the more players or more prospects you can get into the boat, the better chance you have of hitting on one or two. I wish I could say we were that brilliant that we could hit on all three, four, five of those guys in the late rounds, but I know I have a lot better odds if I have eight guys in there instead of just two guys in there. I've always believed if we can move back, and we've traded back a lot in the third day, to collect picks if it's possible, that you get more swings at guys that you can potentially hit on. A guy last year, example, because we made a trade, we were able to get Shamar (Stephen), and he ended up being a pretty good player for us. Kendall James, we ended up cutting, but I will take two or three guys to find one, I think it's definitely worth the risk.
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Q: When you have a history of trading, do you feel teams come to you more frequently inquiring about possible trades?
A: No, I don't think so. I think it always comes down to, if they're targeting a specific guy and they want to come up to get that guy and they don't think that guy can fall down, well maybe they think the value is, "I don't care about the seventh round pick, but if I can get my guy that I know I'm sure of, that I'll take a shot, I'd rather do it that way." It's just different ways, there's no right way or wrong way, no one is ever right or ever wrong, it's worked well both ways, I think the 11th pick is very appealing as a potential trade spot depending on what falls down there because we're out of the top-10 realm, so all of the sudden, that fifth year option is decreased dramatically, from if you were up in the top 10 and you're getting the best of the rest out of that top 10. One of the reasons that I'm looking at when we traded for Matt Cassel, it was very important when we did some of the moving around, things that we did, that we got that first pick in the 5th round, to me, that's very valuable because if there are teams that are hungry to come up and get a guy, and you're right at the top of that fifth round, that's a lot more appealing than if you're picking 28th in the fifth round. Strategically, I try to even look at where our draft picks are in the rounds and how appealing can those draft picks be, as far as someone thinking that's an appealing place to come up and get a player. So, not only are you thinking that, we did some analytics too on sweet spots in the rounds. What's the difference between the 30th player at the bottom of the first and the 14th player in the top half of the second is there that much value difference? Or when you go back and look at history, has there been anything different from that guy becoming successful to maybe the 13th pick in the second round becoming successful? But then I've also been very aggressive in moving back up in. If we have a guy that's above that 30th pick that we had higher in the first round, then I see value to getting up there to go get that guy. So, there's just a lot of moving parts and it's happening a lot on draft day. You think about all of these things as you go through the process, but then when draft day comes, you can go in with a plan, but you know, it's like a game, things happen, you adjust and move on the fly.
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Q: You talked about having eight needs heading into free agency. Has that been whittled down or changed at all?
A: No, we're probably still looking. We're just looking to add the best football players we can and at what points in the draft can we add those. You guys wrote all about our needs. I think the one thing that we really do is we're not really big in the free agency and going out and doing the spending spree. I'd rather sign a bunch of guys who are maybe 1-year prove-it deals and we've had some success with the Jerome Felton's of the world and the Tom Johnson's of the world to fill needs that way. Again, if you can sign a lot more of those guys, you've just got a better chance of potentially hitting on one or two. Plus I know in free agency – and I know this isn't a free agency thing – we're looking for down the road because I know we have some pretty decent young players that are going to be eventually coming up in free agency and the theme has been to draft well and to pay those guys because those are the guys you know the best.
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Q: What kind of offer would it take to consider trading Adrian Peterson?
A: Is this our first Adrian Peterson question? Are we getting off the draft stuff? I will tell you this and we can just end the Adrian Peterson stuff. Our position has not changed since all of the statements we made down at the owner's meetings. Adrian Peterson is under contract, his suspension was lifted. We're looking forward to having Adrian Peterson back here as a Minnesota Viking in 2015 and that's the end of the story. That's it.
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Q: Are you saying there's no chance he'll be traded this week?
A: I think Coach Zimmer stated it pretty clear that we have no interest in trading Adrian Peterson and we don't. Adrian made a mistake, he's paid the price for that mistake, but I think if our organization didn't believe in Adrian Peterson, he still probably wouldn't be here today – and that's from our ownership on down. We believe in Adrian Peterson but I also know that we're a pretty good football team with Adrian Peterson in our backfield as well.
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Q: Is Coach Zimmer more active than most coaches in the draft?
A: He puts a lot of time in. He has tremendous knowledge of football. I know when we listen and when our scouts listen and he's explaining things, you learn something new all of the time. He is not the most patient person in the world all of the time. We are like "Opposites kind of attract," but he has sat in every meeting. He has listened from A-to-Z on every player from every position. He comes in and as we're going through the scenarios for the 8 millionth time, he's sitting in there. I ask him definitely his opinion. Yesterday, like I said, I took the offensive staff, we went in the offensive room, I went and wrote names on the board, not where we would take them but just clumps of guys on how they saw them where I think they're going to be. I did the same thing with the defensive side as well. We've hammered it out about as hard as you can hammer it out. These coaches, they did a lot of these guys down in these later rounds too. After we got through the initial wave and then our scouts put together the board on the backend of that draft and the top of our free agent board, our coaches did a tremendous job during this week when they're done with the players going back in the afternoons and just looking at some of these guys. I had numerous coaches coming to me, "Hey, this guy was kind of appealing as a free agent." The process, like I said, is still continuing as of today.
Q: You said you have no interest in trading Adrian Peterson but do you have any interest in trading his agent?
A: I understand the business. I've been in the business a long time and I have the utmost respect for Ben Dogra. He's an extremely bright individual, we've done plenty of deals with him. He's successful in the business because he has all of those traits to be a very successful agent. I understand the business side of things but I also have, like I said, I don't know if I have any more respect of any other agent than Ben Dogra.
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Q: Does it make it easier for you to trade down and move back if you consider picks 7-20 pretty similar?
A: It makes it easier to trade down because if you have three or four options, okay then you can trade down and still get the player, and now to me, I look it at as you get a player plus another player. The tricky part of it is, I think you really have to understand how far you can move down and understand the teams needs that are potentially behind you. Okay, if we drop down to – just random – 17, what are 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 potentially going to do and can maybe two or three of those guys, if we move down that far and we only have three options, could all three options be gone? And then what are you doing? It's great to pick up and accumulate more picks but you also, I think, have to be very conscientious of how far you move back and potentially moving back too far where you end up with, "Now I'm really disappointed that I got two extra picks but I didn't get any of the players that I love." So that's a balancing act that you really have to be careful of, especially on draft day.
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Q: Do you feel like there is a sense of urgency to surround Teddy Bridgewater with offensive talent?
A: I think it's a sense of urgency to get talent around him offensively and defensively. Teddy had a great rookie year but he's still got a ways to go and he'll admit that and he's working extremely hard to even take the next step forward. If we get a defensive player, does that help get our offense back on the field quicker? If we get an offensive player, does that help keep our offense on the field? That's why I don't try, "Okay we need this offense or defense guy." We're going to take the best player because I think if you take the best player it's going to help your offense and it's going to help your defense. It's kind of like when we went through the coaching search – do you want an offensive head coach or a defensive head coach? I want the best head coach and just like that we want to try to get the best players we possibly can.
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Q: When you have an incident like Shane Ray, what does that do to his stock in your eyes?
A: You'd have to ask other teams that. We spent time with Shane Ray and I'll just keep where we feel that confidential.
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Q: You talked about those edge rusher tweeners. How do you weigh drafting a situational guy with a value pick in the middle of the 1st round?
A: Those are the things that we've had very thorough discussion on. That's where the coaches really come in and help. We can identify those guys and we can tell you what kind of talent they do have, but are they going to fit from a schematic standpoint? I can tell you some guys, "Okay can they play a stack linebacker on 1st and 2nd down and then they rush off the edge on 3rd down?" Other guys, "Well he can't play stack linebacker so he's going to have to be a defensive end and that's all he can do but he can be a pretty good defensive end as an edge rusher." Other guys, "Well he can't play stack, he can't play defensive end but the only way he's going to help us is on nickel 3rd-down situations," so you weigh all of those in. I think the biggest part is those tweener types and you see a lot of these guys, they're more and more every year 245 to 255, 260 pounds and can he grow big enough to be a defensive end? Is he athletic enough to be a linebacker? As our coaches went out there and worked all of these guys out individually, okay we came back and part of our process was this is the bucket he goes in, this is the bucket he goes in and this is the bucket he goes in. So we have a pretty good idea of what we would do with each one of those guys.
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Q: Do you think the load in the draft is less on Coach Zimmer this year because of the time you've been able to spend with him?
A: I'd just say that we had great communication last year but it's still great communication, but the difference is now I can almost – being around him a year – I can almost say what's going to come out of his mouth because you got to know him that much, and you got to know how his brain works, and you got to know on what he likes and what he doesn't like. From that standpoint and just that experience for a whole year, it's to the point now where you can pretty much almost look at each other and know what you're thinking. I think that's a huge part and that's an extremely, extremely important relationship to have between the GM and the head coach.
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Q: How much have analytics helped you hone in on one round and one position?
A: We looked at that. That's a whole different set of analytics. We've got analytics on how far you trade back and front on the board, we've got analytics on the players and all of the different things we collected there, we've got analytics on the successes of positions and where you have to take those. That's all part of it. Analytics has become a lot more significant part of this than it has been in the past.
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Q: Is that just this year?
A: I think it's growing and growing each year. I will always tell you that what that player does on tape and what your gut instinct is on that player will be the end result on how you make your decision.
Q: What role do the psychological consultants have in your process?
A: They do a lot from the psychological standpoint and we get a lot of different results – combatted attitude, social maturity, coachability. We've got 10 different categories that we look at. I'm not going to go into all 10 but those are a couple of examples of it. In each of those categories, it's weighted differently for each position. Corner is not going to have the same psychological makeup as a middle linebacker. On all of those things that we test from a psychological standpoint, there may be weighted on the way they answer the test, it's weighted according to their position. It still comes down to interviewing these players, sitting in front of them, spending time with them and getting to know them as people. You've done, and I've looked back at thousands and thousands of interviews, and you always go back in your head, "Who does this kid remind me of?" and "What happened to that kid?" just like you do evaluating players – "Okay, who does this kid remind you of on tape?", "Okay, who does this kid remind you of personality?" Then there are guys that, like I said, I just look straight at Coach Zim, "Can you handle this guy or not handle him?" and we talk though that. Some guys that we think we can handle it and Coach Zim's favorite saying is, "Well I'm going to need a baseball bat but we can handle him."
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Q: Have you made discussions on the 5th-year options for Matt Kalil and Harrison Smith?
A: Yeah, we'll announce those here coming up shortly. I'm going to get through the draft.
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Q: Do you talk to all of the top players?
A: I can tell you probably tell you the two we didn't talk to were the two quarterbacks but besides those two quarterbacks we talked to everybody and spent time with all of those players.
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Q: Coach Zimmer likes to take the defensive guys and mold them. Does that give him more leeway on his gut feeling than the analytics?
A: Well again, don't take me wrong on the analytics. It's just one of the tools just like the psychological testing is a tool. It's just a thing but it's always going to come back to what we feel as a group and what we feel he is as a football player. If it was just analytics then we don't have to spend all of the money and be away from the family and do as much as we do – just let the computer pitch out the draft. I don't want you to get carried away with it, it's just part of it. The thing that I can tell you that's different is just being around Coach Zimmer and seeing how he handles some of our players internally and what pushes his buttons. It was like, "Well, Coach, I think this guy is going to push your button a little bit," and that I couldn't say last year because I never saw him work with players before. I would say that I can truly understand what he's telling me because I've seen it and seen how he's handled it.
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