From cattle call to a jobs fair, there are numerous ways to describe what goes on off the field at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., this week.
On the field, it's all football, but on Tuesday night Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman gave some Vikings beat reporters a glimpse into what happens when NFL teams put players through the interview process, just one of the many different aspects of the predraft process that most outsiders never see.
After a day of meetings and practices that mimic a week of training camp at the NFL level, complete with coaching staffs from the Vikings and Washington Redskins, Senior Bowl player aren't done with the process of trying to impress the scouts and coaches. For many, the work day extends well into the night, perhaps as late as 10 p.m. It's during the evening hours that players go through interviews with many of the teams.
For the Vikings, that staging area was a meeting room at the Renaissance Riverview Hotel that serves as home this week for the nearly 100 rookie prospects. Numerous tables are stationed around the meeting room, with at least one position coach at each table waiting to talk to their next potential student.
"The coaches have got to put a grade on the interviews. Our scouts will put a grade on the interviews. When we go back, 'Hey, do we need to get this kid again? Do we need to get him at the (the NFL Scouting Combine) or do you feel good about it?'" Spielman said Monday night after taking reporters through one of the interviews with Auburn long snapper Josh Harris, who agreed to the more public setting. "We may not be able to get (a certain player) at the combine, but we may bring him in for our Top 30 (visits) to make sure we spend more time with him or we'll be out at the schools in March."
The Vikings plan to interview every one of the roughly 100 players that hit the practice fields this week in Mobile. At the NFL Scouting Combine next month, teams are limited to 60 formal interviews with players that are limited to 15 minutes each. That's when they will hit up most of the 65 underclassmen that declared themselves eligible for the NFL draft in April. The efforts in Mobile aren't as limiting, making it an ideal time to get an early jump in the attempt to uncover anything the Vikings can that might help them avoid a draft "bust."
The interview process helps to flush out any character concerns the team may have on a prospect after getting a general "security" report on a player's potential legal history from the NFL. The Vikings use a consulting firm to help form the questions to give them a better psychological profile of the prospect.
"You just try to give them open-ended questions and just keep pressing them and seeing where they go," Spielman said. "Most of the kids are going to be very open. Most of the kids and their agents are going to know that there are issues (and) if they do have issues that you're going to get pressed at these things, not only by us, but every NFL team."
Just before letting reporters in on the apparently squeaky-clean background of Harris, Spielman said he had a "doozer" of an interview.
Some of them end early if it becomes apparent there is no way the Vikings want to invest a draft pick and money in someone they don't feel they can trust.
At times, Spielman will catch a player in a lie but just keeps giving him rope to hang his career instead of turning confrontational during the conversation. Players' social media pages, like Twitter and Facebook, help the Vikings gather information about them before they ever step into the interview room.
"We have our guys pull up all their Facebooks, Twitter accounts, and there was a kid last year that his Facebook – you've got to be kidding me. He put this on Facebook?" Spielman said. "And he was a talented player."
By the time the players get to the interview room, Spielman is pretty confident he knows most of the "bad stuff," but there is also the opportunity to learn about high-character players as well. It was apparent early in Harris' interview that family and faith were central parts of his life.
When Harris admitted that he and his girlfriend had started looking at engagement rings, it brought out a classic moment.
"If you don't make the NFL, is she going to dump you? Is she trying to ride your coattails?" Spielman questioned.
"I joke around with her about that all the time. She says no," Harris said during the light-hearted exchange.
Harris also scored points when he knew that the Vikings needed Pro Bowl defensive end Jared Allen as an emergency long snapper because of an injury to starter Cullen Loeffler during one game last year.
"To hear the kid talk about his family and you can get a sense, man, family is important to this kid," Spielman said. "I don't think any of you have any question that that's his driving force. But you get all different, from A to Z, one end of the spectrum to the other."
Harris provided an "A" interview, according to Spielman, and it likely was no coincidence that he was the player on display for reporters.
After the interviews, position coaches will test the players' football knowledge by having them draw up plays or diagnose and opposition's scheme.
"He may not be a good teacher when he's trying to teach, and they may get nervous doing that, but again, that's why you go around the circle a few times with these guys," Spielman said.
Follow-up interviews are allowed at the combine in February or during the player's pro day on campus, and the Vikings bring in 30 players for their "Top 30" visit a few weeks before the draft for one last chance to know them before selection weekend. Last year, the Vikings first talked to their eventual first-round pick, quarterback Christian Ponder, at the Senior Bowl. They talked again during the combine, and eventually they became convinced on his personality and intellect, things that can't be as easily scouted on film or at all-star games.
"By the time you get to the end, it's like, yeah, we feel comfortable with him because we're getting everything back. We're getting all the security background checks, we're getting all the (human resources) testing, all the psychologicals. We don't have any of that right now.
It may be a, 'Hey, this guy, we may have some potential red-flag issues here.' But in the end, by the time we get all the information, it could be up or down."
