EVERYTHING That Goes into Being an NFL General Manager | NFL Explained

big breaking news brown's finally hiring a general manager my expectation for everybody in this room is to come to work with a positive attitude and energy the lot has certainly changed since mike mayox had become the general manager bill o'brien is their general manager he got that title today all right patrick when i said everyone who is anyone who is here i'm at the gym at the atlanta falcon my job as a general manager is to deal with the business side to be the strong liaison between football operations and the owner of the team so as the ownership calls you answer a lot of questions does coach know what he's doing is he using the players properly we're not good enough in a certain position why not got to be ready to answer those questions many of us will hire really based on your evaluation skills you know usually you come up the ladder through scouting but it's funny once you get to become a general manager it's not really a scouting job it's really more of a leadership job you know you hire really talented people and you kind of give them a vision this is what we're looking for set the expectations you know you let them do their work and then take in information and make decisions i kid my wife once we started training camp the next day off i'll probably take is after the draft we're talking about everything from how we want to paint the field to the color of socks we're going to wear to the mouth guards we're going to use to the massive contracts on julio jones and matt ryan and pro acquisitions from other teams patriots willing to give up a second round pick to get muhammad sunu one time i signed a replacement defensive lineman during the game we're doing 20 25 contracts at the same time are you ready to be a minnesota viking [Applause] organized chaos there is nothing like the euphoria of competition at this level so i break our season up into phases and our phase starts with training camp there you go that's a pretty good football right there i like it we're getting ready for a season which is of course incredibly important get yourself in shape that's on you not me july to the end of august the number one priority a general manager has at that time is to evaluate his team beginning of this whole process we start with 90 players and we cut down to 53. i think the most difficult part of this job is making those final decisions on who's going to be on your 53 because there's a lot of very tough decisions and a lot of it may have to do with business only both dan and myself spend hours and hours pouring over video and discussions and and reports from not only our coaching staff but our scouting staff to determine how we're truly going to put our 53-man roster together there are a lot of players that you want to keep and a lot of players that are evolving and we think that they can continue to grow but we don't have an opportunity to keep them around because 53 it seems like a lot of players until you're actually picking wow let's go we got to put the best football team on the field everyone knows that you know no one's gliding around here thinking they have things signed sealed and delivered as you know we've got to cut our roster down and we're going to have to release you today i know you've uh put your heart soul into this and you played well so i understand why it's tough i know the night before we get down to the 53 i'm usually staring at the ceiling all night sleeping on a couch because i can't sleep the thing that i probably hate the most about this job is to sit there and talk to each individual player that come in that i know we're going to have to release you never know you may be in the coaching side of this one day in your life so we may run into each other on that side too especially if it's a veteran that has played here has done everything we've asked both on the field and off the field but it's time coach always had the final say where i was but it was always collaborative head coaches get blamed when you're six and five certainly when the owner's your general manager providing talent like he has you're telling him to motivate him to discipline them to get them play together i didn't want somebody in that room thinking they could come to me and save their job you go to the coach you save your job we also pick who we think are the most suitable for us to be on our practice squad and the practice squad is a very important part of our team they may not be making the same amount of money but they're a really important part of not only developing themselves while they're on the practice squad but also helping to develop our 53-man roster ron wolf did this in green bay the last three positions 51 2 and 3 were fluid he wanted to rotate those things roll them through all the time that gives you a chance of picking up some players during the season i like that idea i'm so emotional about this game 100 years of the nfl what a place to start what a place to be 100th anniversary of the national football league and very few venues bring it like they bring it here in minnesota that caps it off and makes it official it's time to play football september to december that's the football season so so what do we do during the season once the season starts there's not a lot of impact type moves that you can make on a roster maybe making a trade or two but there's not a lot of specific trades that go on during the season unlike other professional sports from the beginning of the season all the way through the season it is all about team building it is all about culture and continuing to create what is necessary for us to be a championship organization you kind of get into a little bit of a routine i like to also watch the opponent look at some of their upcoming potential unrestricted free agents and what the free agency market's going to look like we had a list ready every week the best players available at each position and the best young players on each practice squad if we wanted to have them for the future on game day i have no say in anything how we're going to blitz the quarterback and what type of deep balls we're going to throw to julio or what type of screens we're going to run we do work hand in hand with the coaches establishing the roster each week if we have injured players working with a personnel department making transactions get you prepared to play on sundays game planning and all that stuff is all done by the coaches you know the coaches are working obviously the players are playing so watching is a little difficult because you really can't be a part of it i sit there with my hands tied and if i do call down to the sideline we've all seen what happens there gm ray farmer has been suspended without pay all for those text messages he sent from his skybox to the sidelines last season we flow through the season where things are really busy not only looking at the personnel that we may be acquiring but also evaluating how we are as a team you know currently when the season is truly finished and our games are through we continue to build and we continue to look at how we're going to improve our football team ready all right so sign right here our number one priority going into the off season was to solidify the quarterback position very excited to announce that we able to finalize the deal on kirk cousins the pro department has to start their meetings in january to get prepared for a free agency period so we formulate our plan for reagency after the season after we've had these meetings let's agree on what our needs are what players do we want back and what players don't we want back that are under contract bridging what personnel has said what the coaches have said now they're not going to have always a full understanding of how all those financial pieces are going to fit before free agency there was no salary cap and i did 90 of the negotiations at general manager free agency came a salary cap came we needed to have somebody to oversee the salary cap and the contract negotiations as you evaluate players and evaluate veteran players you have to make sure that their performance level moving forward is equal to what their pay will be you can't pay a player for what it used to be you have to pay for what they're going to be you have to be very conscientious of our cap management when you do specific deals the minnesota vikings agreeing to a four-year contract extension with adam thielen that includes 35 million dollars guaranteed and how it's not only going to affect you this year but houses are going to affect your roster two three years down the road once you get through those periods and you get ready for the combine which is probably the most critical off-season event that we attend preparing for the draft as a general manager is is busy but it's a year-long process right our scouts start off providing me with information probably 13 months before we even draft these players we had last year i think 95 people involved in the combine in the draft process we're not only talking about building our draft board we're talking about the character issues that may be out there elements of intelligence that we're trying to discern we weed through all of that build our draft board the initial stages of our draft board and then we go out into the bowl games and the all-star season and we start looking at players in that in that setting when they're when they're truly competing against some of the best against the best you're attending the east west game you're attending the senior bowl hopefully you're still in the playoffs there are interruptions for the playoff games and for the super bowl and obviously you don't mind those interruptions you know the senior bowl doesn't change states just because your team's in the playoffs or not in the playoffs along with the other things so from a personnel standpoint our first draft meetings are in december and they'll always be in december i continue to get back reports from our scouting group all the way up until december when we have our first set of draft meetings which is a very important time for us when we're evaluating the initial stages of building our draft board the month of february we had our draft meetings to go through all the players who will be in indianapolis everything from background information what we learned during the all-star game season what the scouts saw during the fall so there's a lot of several weeks that go into the back end organization before we even you know move to indianapolis this is the first time that we have an extended period to actually have our coaching staff sit with these guys talk with these guys and really engage in good football conversations with these prospects who's the best quarterback you've played for over here thank you all right here we go the month of march uh a lot of us are out on the road going through these pro days um getting prepared for the draft and then once april circles around we come together as a coaching staff as a personnel staff and start having our draft meetings to make final preparations for that big weekend good evening welcome to the 2019 nfl draft the arizona cardinals are on the clock draft day we had everybody in the draft we had the scouts we had the coaches if the owner choose to come what she did in houston i invited anybody in the organization hey come on in we never had a problem with information leaking first of all most staff they get so bored they don't want to stay they go okay god this thing is like watching grass grow day one can be a little slow till you're close to getting on the clock depending on where you're picking but hopefully you're going to be able to pick an impact player that can have an impact on your roster man that was close it's like the most fascinating process i think out of any professional sports because everybody that you're drafting is expected to make an immediate impact it's not like they're going to a minor league or they're going to do this they're going to do that that's where i feel like general managers really thrive it's of course we love watching the games during the fall but again can't do much during the fall if you're the general manager can you go to ownership and say remember those those draft picks i gave up that's a big mistake remember i told you that this coach needed to be hired so we could attach him to the hip or this quarterback forget all that so let's talk about draft date how do you handle the trade there well risk versus reward you have to look at who's available when you pick what your options might be what another team is offering how far we have to go back what we can accumulate those players as well compared to the player that we could get and we spend a lot of time talking about it there has been a trade involving this uh fifth pick in the draft the new orleans saints are now on the clock we started off in the fifth position ricky williams was the player that new orleans saints wanted they i believe were 12. finally we negotiated a trade with them which started weeks before the draft to say that they would give us their entire draft nine o'clock that morning we formulated the trade if williams was going to be there well we went through the draft and all of a sudden williams was there i wanted to find a way could we move back up the only team that would move was the chicago bears they wanted cade mcdowell i was able to convince him caden mcnall would be available at 11 or 12. so we got a trade semi done we get on the clock at five ricky williams is there saints uh but we consummate the deal with them rams are picking six they take tory holt wide receiver champ bailey's on the clock that's the guy we won he was the number one player in the board so we have a trade already set with chicago i call chicago well we got to have another third round picking this thing well i'm mad now now you got two options you tell them where they can go or you make the deal the redskins traded to the bears the new orleans saints first round pick as well as third round pick in this year's draft washington's fourth and fifth round picks in this year's draft as well as a third round pick in the next year's draft with the seventh pick the washington redskins select champ bailly defensive back university of georgia we got the guy we wanted we got the trade done ultimately barely went to the hall of fame so uh it was worth it to make that trade garrett rick spielman how you doing bud you know you get different reactions when you call these kids just want to tell you that you were one of my favorite players this year and uh and you're going to be a baltimore raven it's great because now a lot of them are either in the green room or they have cameras in their homes or wherever they're having their draft party and when you talk to those kids and you hear the joy big jed what's up man how are we doing you doing great how y'all doing we're going to make you a brown here mr appreciate y'all they've earned that right to say that they were an nfl draft pick as you start getting later in the draft rounds and you call these these kids some of these kids have been sitting around for hours and hours and days feeling really bad about themselves and they've had parties and the parties have dissipated right and all of a sudden there's only like two or three of them left and you can hear how disappointed they are and it's your first chance of really having an opportunity to help bring them along and encourage them that look there's a long road ahead of you here whether you're drafted in the sixth round or the sixth overall pick the craziest part of the whole weekend is right after the draft and trying to sign 20 college free agents and it's no holds barred everybody's calling the same top guys if you're trying to fight sign a receiver and one guy's kind of iffy well you're working three other receivers at the same time favorite part of course is on draft day of course is preparing to build the team and make this the best team besides the game days on sundays or whether you're playing during the week draft day is what gm's live for it is also the euphoria of game day i mean i think you could be in another business and it could be exciting from from day to day and an event to event within a business but there is nothing like you know the euphoria of competition at this level i've been on 18 somewhere since i was probably eight years old until now which i think is pretty cool i love that part of it being on a team you've worked towards a common goal the most fun thing for me as a general manager was was signing a player or drafting a player and seeing the player go on and develop brian mitchell he was a quarterback at southwest louisiana an option quarterback great statistics go to a college all-star game in houston in the astrodome he didn't play a lot but he practiced he's practicing running back and i saw him catching balls out of the backfield and said you know this guy this guy might have something to him a running back coach don brawl went down and worked him out hey we gotta take this guy we're sitting there in the fifth round got the last pick in the fifth round of my first draft brian mitchell's up on the board okay let's go with this guy there's no way that we knew okay that brian mitchell would become the all-time leader in kick return yardage for the national football league and second to jerry rice in total yards he played seven more seasons he got to be scratching him biting and fighting baby and i'm willing to do all three of them those are the things that get you excited about a general manager finding a player and then seeing them develop and grow into a starter or an excellent player got a lot of stories like that but brian mitchell might be one of the more unique ones i really have a strong feeling that you know the the nfl gm is evolving for sure football technology for instance i have a strong belief in that and i believe any general manager within the league that is going to continue to be successful needs to be at least cognizant of being on the front end of the curve i think the way that players learn is totally different than it was even 10 years ago whether it's the millennials or generation z they learn different you just can't put a big playbook so i think part of the responsibility of the organization is as players come in we have to individually understand how each player learns i think also the mental health is a huge thing that is continuing to grow you should not be ashamed if you're having mental health issues to reach out and get help to me i always looked at as like if you had a sprained ankle you're gonna go see a doctor if you're having something whatever from a mental health go see the expert to get it fixed we have to be very open-minded to evolving as a sport and i think we are i think we have a lot of very intelligent people who are not anywhere near as myopic as they used to be all due respect to older generations in this business we have to be very open-minded we have to understand that all of this technology is going to supplement a head coach while he's facing his opposition and and and for a general manager who's open-minded to use all of this technology we have to make sure that we're not only picking the best players but keeping the best players on our team and preparing our players in the best way through athletic performance and all we're doing technology wise there so that we can have the best players on the field

Channel: NFL Network

Views: 294,311

Rating: 4.9020867 out of 5

Keywords: nfl, nfl network, football, american football

Id: HyeNp_Q3PkE

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020