2012 NFL Draft: The Effect of Character on Draft Status

The NFL Draft is held late April every year in New York City, and every year, there are multiple players who slip down NFL teams' draft boards due to multiple reasons. Sometimes it results from not being talented enough to go in the early rounds, and other times it’s due to the fact they were probably over-hyped as a football player. The biggest reason for some of the most talented players slipping is their character issues.

Throughout the past five years there are multiple cases of players getting dropped down boards due to character issues. In 2008, Mario Manningham and Carl Nicks both were thought to have first round talent but wound up going in the third and fifth round picks. Max Kriegel of Fox Sports has the theory that,

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Character isn’t the issue. It’s the knucklehead issue. In this respect, NFL franchises aren’t unlike those you work for. They don’t want embarrassment. They don’t want guys missing work. They don’t want knuckleheads.

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This thought is very easy to agree with. These teams are about to invest hundreds of thousands, if not millions into these players and want to make sure their investment will not just help the team but will help the image of their team. Atlanta’s owner Arthur Blank didn’t want a repeat of the Michael Vick fiasco, and had to value character. Since the hiring of Thomas Dimitroff and Mike Smith, Atlanta has not drafted a player with any sort of arrest record. They even have specifications known as "black dots", players who will be penalized for character concerns, and "black dots plus", players removed from the board completely.

There is also the other side of the story, where sometimes a player is perceived as a character issue when he has only had an isolated incident. Kory Sheets in the 2009 draft is one that had an isolated incident where he had blamed a teammate for a loss, which rightfully so, would have still been a bad thing, but it's not enough to be considered a character issue concern.

Another case of going too far with the character issues is former North Carolina and current Cleveland Brown, Greg Little. He had top 15 talent at wide receiver, but due to the scandal at North Carolina, he was dropped into the 2nd round. However the issue at North Carolina was that he accepted illegal benefits and as Cory Steger notes,

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Little was open and honest about his role in the scandal, took responsibility for the actions that derailed his senior season and expressed genuine remorse during interviews with the media and teams at the Combine.

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With Little's honesty and accountability about the scandal, he may have gotten a black dot on a board, but he shouldn't have. There is a maturity with some players that has to be rooted out through the draft process.

This offseason, there are multiple players who have concerns with character. There are multiple corners who have been on the list when you look at Cliff Harris, Janoris Jenkins and Dre Kirkpatrick. However, the big thing is not whether the player has a character issue, it's whether they are willing to work through them. Dave Birkett recalls an anecdote from Brian Billick:

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Billick told a story Saturday of one prospect he interviewed at the combine years ago who had a rap sheet of "nothing really serious but enough stuff to know this guy's been around."

It was late at night and Billick was direct with the player.

"He sat down, I said, 'Look, you're tired, I'm tired, let's cut to the chase. Are you a thug or are you stupid, which is it?' " Billick recalled. "And he goes, 'Are those my only options?'

"The toughest thing is, what are the issues? Young people tend to do stupid things. Do you have a sense that he understands that he's got to change his behavior? Is he willing to have the people around to now change that behavior? And now going forward, is this an ingrained part of his character or did he just do some stupid things. And if it's the latter, yeah, you can be optimistic about the NFL and what's at stake for him will help sort that out. If it's an innate part of the character, that's where you don't want to make that mistake."

Billick said the player he interviewed went on to play 10 seasons in the NFL and never had an issue.

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Let's hope that some of the players in this year's draft realize what is at stake and truly take care of the issues that will be holding them back. Some of the guys like Linebacker Vontaze Burfict of Arizona State have been working towards correcting their issues, but in those cases it could already be too late. He will have to prove his worth after the draft.