Bucs GM Jason Licht.
This was a strange response in Joe’s mind, but in the big picture, maybe it makes sense. Maybe?
The draft is a completely inexact science. In some ways, the NFL is a different game from college football. Spread offenses dominate college ball and the way linemen block in the NFL is foreign to many rookies.
(Joe never understood the NFL gripe that quarterbacks don’t call their own plays in college and get signals from the sidelines. How is that any different than the NFL where coaches call the plays via headsets? So college coaches using sign language and posters of Kate Upton inhibit quarterback play how? Quarterbacks are too distracted by the thought of Upton possibly looking at him from the sideline?)
Joe remembers Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian often saying on SiriusXM NFL Radio that nailing first-round picks is a 50/50 crapshoot (those odds sink for each round) and if a team finds three starters in a particular draft, a team is doing well.
Even though the NFL spends tens of millions of dollars on draft research each year, the draft remains an educated guess.
In a recent sitdown with Seattle general manager John Schneider and Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht on BSPN, the two were asked to explain elements of their jobs that fans likely won’t understand.
Licht told host and former Jets and Dolphins shot-caller Mike Tannenbaum that he’s often unable to publicly defend a draft pick that doesn’t work out because he’d be throwing some of his staffers under the bus.
Or the player.
“It’s really hard … we have great staffs,” Licht said. “Lean on them a lot.
“But you are making decisions — you’re the final decision maker. And you don’t have a chance to, you can’t go out and defend yourself. People don’t understand the whole, everything that went into the decision. Like they just see the end result.
“But you can’t go out [and defend yourself]. You don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. You don’t want to explain that these things happen along the way.
“So it’s hard you have to make decisions that at the end of the day [if] you’re going to be wrong on someone, that you can’t defend yourself.”
And Licht pointed out there’s no way to do his job successfully without leaning heavily staff. So he is sort of a shield if a player doesn’t pan out. Licht will take the bullets.
Besides, as Licht noted, he’s the final decision-maker.
Just to illustrate what Licht is referring to, Joe knows of two mid-range draft picks the Bucs had in the 2010s that completely pulled a successful con on Bucs staffers to convince them they were football junkies more than willing to bust their tails 24/7.
Neither had a second contract with the Bucs and were pretty much out of the NFL after they left Tampa Bay, bouncing around on practice squads and CFL/USFL/XFL rosters. One player from each side of the ball.
Former Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik — though he didn’t give up the player’s name — outed Myron Lewis on SiriusXM NFL Radio once. The other player, Joe heard from a Bucs suit, was referred to as “Eddie Haskell.”