NFL scouts spend months examining recruitment candidates, but their fate can be summed up in just a few moments with a head coach.
Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule recalled his own experience on Tuesday with a great candidate last year when he said it only took an elevator ride to decide it would not be a “fit”.
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“There was a player last year, and I will not say who, but it was to be very well chosen,” he told the Panthers website. “And I got on the elevator with him at Combine, and I was like, at the end of the elevator ride, I was like, ‘There’s no way this guy can fit in with us.'”
Rhule said the pandemic this year will make knowledge of recruitment prospects even more difficult due to the new limitations set – making the work of scouts even more difficult.
“This would be a year where everyone in the NFL knows less about players than any other year,” he said. “We think we know these guys, and our scouts do a great job, but this is only information from others. This is a chance for players to speak for themselves and say, ‘This is me.'”
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“Training them, being in meetings, just being in the elevator with them, gives the guys an idea.”
The qualities that Rhule looks for in a prospect are quite straightforward.
“We try to find out who is tough, hard-working and competitive, who is smart, who loves the game. And who is a good person. We spend six months a year together, so we want to be close to people we like and fit us.”
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The Panthers ended the regular season from 5 to 11, winning eighth place in the overall draft. Rhule said he is looking to increase the team’s attack and mix some young players.
The last time Carolina had choice number 8, they cast the team’s star Christian McCaffery in 2017.