OXNARD, Calif. – Some thoughts on the Scout's Personnel Meeting with Jerry and Stephen Jones:
This past Tuesday, Jerry and Stephen Jones held their annual training camp meeting with the scouts who have been in Oxnard to evaluate these practices and offer their views on what they have observed up until this point of training camp.
Having been in these meetings before, I was always very interested in what the scouts were able to take from these practices. These meetings were always intense but structured in a way that provided the best setting to gain the best knowledge of the direction personnel wise of the squad. To give you a little background, the scouts are assigned a specific position which they have to report on. In this meeting, Jerry and Stephen will go position-by-position and each scout will present his thoughts in front of the group with a player-by-player breakdown.
Their focus will be on how the player performed, where he fits on the roster and if there are any concerns they might have with the player going forward. At that point, Jerry and Stephen will ask follow-up questions, and the directors like Will McClay and Tom Ciskowski will also have the opportunity to offer their thoughts as well. Following the Tuesday meeting, I had a chance to visit with a couple of front office members. They told me that there were no real surprises in what was discussed, and the dialogue and the feedback from the scouts was on point and well-received.
For the scouts, the next order of business will be to hit the two-a-day practices around the country and prepare for the bulk of their scouting calendar for the 2014 NFL Draft.
But while they are in their scouting areas around the country, another important responsibility for them will be to attend the various NFL preseason game. Will McClay and Judd Garrett will assign these scouts teams to cover while they are on the road to get a live look to report back to the directors on what they are seeing. [embedded_ad] The scouts on this staff will have access to all the tapes of these preseason games and will be able to break them down which is a huge plus. But it's these live looks at games that will give the best information of how these teams are playing their players and who might make the final roster or be available when the club makes its roster reductions
We all tend focus on the players currently on this squad but in reality, the next starter on this team could very well be playing in another NFL city right now.
