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Tempe – I had a long talk with a former NFL player today about Mike Maccagan, who is a little bit of a mystery man.
The guy is a former Houston Texan and is around that team a lot. He knows the scene.
We were having kind of philosophical football chat.
The college scouting director helps set the board, and has a lot of input on the draft process.
But when it come to who stays and who goes in training camp, he has limited say on that.
That generally is more with the GM, and to a large degree the coach in most place. Obviously there are a handful of coaches, like Bill Belichick, that have final say.
The reason I bring that up is in relation to the Texans’ drafts while Maccagnan was running their scouting department.
In 2013, the Texans picked defensive tackle Chris Jones from Bowling Green in the sixth round.
They tried to move him to their practice squad, and they ended up losing him, first to Tampa Bay, and then New England.
He’s starting at defensive tackle in the Super Bowl.
My point is that is a heck of sixth round pick by Maccagan’s scouting department.
But when it comes to moving guys around, to and from the practice squad, who is on the 53, the college scouting director isn’t making that move.
He’s more involved with finding players like Chris Jones, and stacking the board before the draft.
So Maccagnan’s scouting department did a nice finding Jones. The rest was out of their hands.
The Texans did a terrific job with some late round picks in 2014, with RB Alfred Blue in the sixth round, and cornerback Andre Hall in the seventh round.
Two guys that helped the Texans as rookies. They also like another sixth round pick, defensive tackle Jeff Pagan. Another seventh round pick, safety Lonnie Ballentine, didn’t play last year, but is still with them.
It’s very important for the Jets to start drafting better on the second and third days.
I was interviewing Jones a couple of days ago at the Super Bowl, when it occurred to me, “hey, he was a Texans draft pick in 2013.”
A starting defensive tackle in the Super Bowl. Not a bad sixth round value for Maccagan’s scouting department in Houston.
And now that Maccagnan has final say, perhaps a guy like Jones isn’t getting out of the building.
And something else about Maccagan.
Remember, he came to Houston under Charlie Casserly.
Rick Smith took over for Casserly as GM in 2006, and turned over the scouting department.
He kept Maccagnan.
The speaks volumes about his reputation. Mike has a lot of respect in the scouting world.
The guy is a scout’s scout, and I think the Jets made a very good choice.
Now some people will tell you he doesn’t have a personality that is going to go over well with the media. He’s very low-key.
Was he brought in to perform on stage for the media or find players?
It’s much more of the latter.
I keep talking to people who say that Maccagnan has to handle the press a lot better than Idzik.
Perhaps, but I’d say he needs to win more than Idzik to handle the press better.
Because maybe you could get the media lions from having you for dinner sooner with a great personality, but that will only work for so long.
He needs to pick better players and win to keep the media at bay. That’s the best formula.
And constantly hitting on late round picks like Chris Jones and Andre Hall would certainly help.
January 30, 2015
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