Senior Bowl: Coaches and front office put in extra time to create the draft board.
AL, MOBILE – The scouting process for the NFL Draft is gathering momentum at the same time as practices for the Senior Bowl, which is held this Saturday, here at Hancock Whitney Stadium.
This is the time of year when the Steelers scouting department starts to see results from all of their hard work during the season.
But it also means that some days are extremely long.
The Director of Player Scouting for the Steelers, Mark Sadowski, stated on Wednesday that “we have our schedule for the Senior Bowl, but we have our own personal schedules, too.” Many of us watch tapes before practices and get up really early. The previous all-star games and the juniors coming out are major factors. Many of us
“So on Sunday, we left for that place and returned here. We’ll watch that early in the morning before coming over here for this practice because a lot of the tape from that session has started to come in. We’re pretty much always here. We arrive for practice in the morning. We stay after practice and get together as a staff to discuss who performed well and who didn’t. We mainly concentrate on that so Coach (Mike) Tomlin and General Manager (GM) Omar Khan can see what we’re all observing. We have a brief break for dinner after that, and the remainder of the evening is spent in interviews. After that, it returns to the individual schedule of continuing to watch tapes.”
It’s an intimidating process that gets more intense until the NFL Draft, which takes place at the end of April, with hundreds of prospects available each year.
Lolley co-hosts “SNR Drive” on Steelers Nation Radio and works as a contributing writer/editor. The Steelers organization does not share his opinions.
Get the “SNR Drive” podcast by subscribing here: iHeart Podcast | Apple Podcast
One of the top college all-star games, the Senior Bowl offers the scouting departments of all 32 teams the chance to watch some of the top prospects in college football together on the field.
It also gives the coaching and scouting staff of the Steelers the opportunity to start the process of getting to know players outside of just watching tape.
Every day, players and team personnel have one-on-one interviews. Teams can also observe how players interact with one another while playing.
To add even more context, the American team’s offensive line is coached by assistant offensive line coach Isaac Williams, which is a benefit for the Steelers.
This is essentially the first chance the team’s coaching staff has to start getting to know the prospects.
Basically, when they get involved, our scouting staff grows,” stated Dan Colbert, the director of college scouting for the Steelers. “Isaac Williams, for instance, has been playing this week and has gained some first-hand knowledge. All of that is worthwhile. We won’t always be able to get that off film or at the NFL Scouting Combine. We learn a little bit more about the prospects through the interviews.
