A Scout’s Take: The Importance of All-Star Games in the Evaluation Process
A Scout’s Take: The Importance of All-Star Games in the Evaluation Process
In another week, more than 200 college football players will begin to assemble at the two main College Football All-Star Games for a week of practice and a
game. The two games are, of course, the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl.
The Shine game for the last two years was held in Las Vegas, but because that is the site of the Super Bowl this year, the game has been switched to the Star,
which is the facilities of the NFC East Dallas Cowboys.
The Senior Bowl, as usual, will be held in Mobile, Alabama. The Senior Bowl is the bigger game of the two as it has a strong tradition and, for the most part,
gets the better roster. In recent years, though, the East-West Game, under the direction of Eric Galko, has made tremendous strides in getting top payers to
attend.
Regardless of what game players attend, there will be a high number of NFL coaches and evaluators attending the practices. Few end up staying for the
games as the practices are more important.
That said, how important are these games in the overall evaluation process of each player? Reality is about 5% if that. There are, of course, certain players at
each game where the evaluation can be more important and/or critical to their overall grade, but for the most part, the percentage is small.
For the amateur (i.e., not employed by an NFL team) draft analyst, though, these practices and games end up being more important in their evaluation.
Why? Because this is one of if not the only time these analysts/evaluators will get a chance to actually see these players in person. Because of that, they put
more emphasis on the week of work they watch.
For club scouts, decision-makers, and coaches, the interviews are far more important than what they see in the practices. Why is that? Because they already
have over a year of reports from their scouts in their employ who have seen these players multiple times either on school visits or games. What a player does
during the season carries much more weight than anything they see at an All-Star game.
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