The NFL Draft is in the rearview mirror and teams are starting to get their first up-close looks at their newest players during rookie minicamps. While rookie minicamps may not seem like the most important thing in the offseason, sometimes you can tell a lot based on how certain players handle themselves.
NFL Insider Brian Baldinger of the Audacy Sports Podcast “The Best Football Show” explained how front offices, coaches, and even players know when rookies are going to have trouble after watching them just a few times in minicamp.
“There is a scary point for every single general manager and head coach when you see these players in your building and on the field for the first time because in some cases there’s an ‘Oh my, what did we just do?’ kind of feeling,” Baldinger said. “In fact, the veterans know within days of these rookies coming in – just the way that they act. The way that they move. The way that they look on the field in position groups. The way that they either have attention or no attention when you get into meetings. The players know within days if a player has a chance of being a great player or a good player or if he’s even going to make the team.
“We know it. We can separate these guys almost immediately because we just know how you’re supposed to act. And I’m not saying that every rookie has to be a choir boy. It’s not even that. We just know guys that have it.”
Despite the months and hours of work that go into scouting dozens of players, you can’t get a true feel for how a player may compete in the NFL until you get eyes on them in your building.
It’s not just the mid- and late-round picks, either. First-round picks have a higher turnover rate than you may expect.
“In 2020, 11 of the 32 first-round draft picks have been extended the fifth-year option, meaning over two-thirds of the teams basically said ‘We don’t really care. If they have a great season this year, great, but we’re ready to move on,’” Baldinger continued. “There’s a high bust factor in the first round. Basically, you go through any draft and ten players in every first round of the draft are busts or close to busts, just didn’t make a big impact. So what I’m saying is you get to these minicamps and they’ll go on the field and throw the ball around.”
Baldinger was signed by the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 1982. The Cowboys made 16 picks across the 12-round draft, but it was the undrafted Baldinger who knew their top pick ultimately wouldn’t cut it in the NFL.
“I knew my rookie year, our first-round draft pick in 1982 with the Dallas Cowboys, you can go look it up, I’m not going to mention his name. I knew when he was late to the first practice because he was busy signing an agreement for a car company. He was going to get a dealer car and he was late to practice,” Baldinger recalled. “I knew right then, not just because of that, I just knew the guy wasn’t going to be a player. The Cowboys blew the pick.”
The Cowboys had selected defensive back Rod Hill with the 25th overall pick in that 1982 NFL Draft. Hill lasted two seasons in Dallas before being traded to Buffalo, and he was out of the league after the 1987 season.
On the flip side, Baldinger knew that the Ravens were going to get a lot of production out of their first-round picks in 1996.
“I go down to practice and it’s Ray Lewis and Jonathan Ogden are the first-round picks. And I saw Ray Lewis move in that first minicamp and I said ‘This already looks like the best linebacker in football.’ It was just that instant,” he said. “You watch Jonathan Ogden, who was playing left guard at the time, he was the biggest guy on the field but he just had these hands and this movement that you go ‘Nobody 6-foot-9 has ever moved like this. Ever. Nobody. Nobody this size has ever moved like this.’
“I didn’t know I was going to see two first-ballot Hall of Famers, but I knew the Baltimore Ravens struck gold in the draft in 1996.”
Lewis and Ogden helped the Ravens to a Super Bowl championship just five years into their career.
“Rookie minicamps, they show you a lot before you ever put the pads on about players. Their movement. Their maturity. How they conduct themselves. How they compete. You know right away.”