Scouting Process Quotes

When a scout recommends a brilliant right back or a coach recommends one from our academy, we want the manager to weigh up what is right for the team.

It's part of the reason I went to Duke. Coach K came to me. He saw everything but the dunks. He was like, 'It's a dunk. It's two points. Who cares?' He saw every other part of my game that I wanted the world to see.

It's not just the NFL. Every other league has a draft. It has been fundamental to the success of professional sports.

My view is that the signing of players should be a simple process. The chief scout identifies them, the manager decides who he wants, and the chief executive is dispatched to do the deal. It really is as simple as that.

I would love to play for the Bucs. But that being said, I think if you find the team that wants you, that's going to be the right team.

All of us that have teams want to pick the right people. I've thought a lot about that. In the NFL, we've got 13 scouts traveling the country. We're trying to pick 22 year-olds coming out of college who will be successful in the NFL. It's very hard to do. What I've learned is it's always character first.

So many guys come onto the scene who aren't supposed to be there. You pull for one, and then you see there's another and another and another, and you start to say, 'Who cares where a player was drafted? He can play football, and he can play at this level.'

David Rouse, a goalkeeping scout for Manchester City, came over for maybe a week in October. He was an awesome guy. He showed me what kind of club they were like. We talked about Manchester City. He watched me and watched a game.

I got scouted when I was 16, almost 17, and it was something that had never entered my thoughts. I never thought I could be a model. I was such a tomboy growing up, and I've never really been into makeup or anything like that, so it was really surprising, but I definitely saw it as an in for acting.

Even though I'd been invited to the combine, I didn't test particularly well. That didn't really surprise me, I had I no expectation that I'd shock people with an insane 40 time. But I knew things weren't looking good when I started getting asked a lot of questions about the size of my hands.

I got scouted for Tottenham and was there for three to four weeks before a phone call from Arsenal came. The first session they wanted to sign me so, happy days, I didn't look back. I'm an Arsenal fan, everyone in my family is Arsenal, so it wasn't a hard decision.

I grew up watching my dad scout games live. They played on Saturday. Sometimes they wouldn't get the films until Monday. Sunday air shipping from wherever the college team was located - Starkville, Mississippi, or wherever the film was coming from. It took two days.

When I got drafted I was sitting at home with my Mom watching the draft live on the internet when my name popped up on the screen. We both jumped up in joy and I immediately called my Dad who was out of town for work. Everyone was thrilled and then about 10 minutes late Matt Anderson (the Marlins scout who drafted me) called to give me the news as well and to start negotiating a contract.

Listen, we've drafted guys that wouldn't come in for workouts before. It's not the end of the world.

Obviously, when you take a quarterback, when you take anybody in the first round, it means something.

An agent won't help you get drafted higher, won't make you win more games, and won't make you faster or stronger. They all say they can, but the people who do the drafting don't talk to agents. They talk to coaches, they watch film, they talk to the people who've worked with players. They don't talk to agents.

The key for scouting is trying to predict when the player is peaking.

The scouts are watching matches and we have a huge amount of data we purchase and a pyramid approach in terms of delivering that information to our chief scout and his team who are assessing it.

Like any year, any year with any team, you're always going to look to the draft to help strengthen your roster and free agency.

I had friends around campus and great teammates. I didn't want to leave. I didn't expect to be regarded and scouted as such a high pick, so it was a crazy twist to reality. I'd always wanted to make the NBA. It was my dream. Then all of a sudden, people were telling me I'd be the fourth pick if I entered the draft.

As a scouting department, with the confidence we have in our player development, if a guy has the potential that we think they have and the makeup and they stay healthy, we think they will be a productive Major Leaguer. We take a lot of pride in that.

Honestly, I think the combine is a waste of time. The effort should be in film watching, physicals, and mental evaluations.

We had a work session [in "Moneyball"] where about 30 scouts came in and we're all riffing. And after it, [director] Bennett Miller said: Look at these faces and this is what we have to got to do. We got to get these guys in the scene.

Kids will never go under the radar any more because there are so many scouts at grassroots level. Also, if you come out of a professional academy, it's a very lonely place for a child and some kids don't bounce back from it.