Teams to be fined, lose picks for unprofessional conduct during draft prospect interviews

[Broncofan]

35 minutes ago, ChazStandard said:

Apparently they're also scrapping the wonderlic, which is an odd decision.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/01/05/report-nfl-abandons-the-wonderlic-test/

I think they're going with the AIQ alone.   I looked it up, seems like it's been Wonderlic & AIQ for several years now.   Makes sense in that context, Wonderlic has never been shown to correlate at all with NFL success, while AIQ has.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/on-nfl-draft-day-new-iq-test-takes-top-position-in-player-scouting.html

Edited January 5, 2022 by Broncofan

[Dr LBC]

1 hour ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Yep we agree. Good practice that probably doesn't make a bit of difference when applied, but worth the effort either way.

Though honestly, depending on how much a candidate chooses to reveal personally, sometimes it's harder than you'd imagine dodging all of the -isms. Like the ones that always trips me up is when candidates bring stuff up on their own. Like you're making small talk and they say something about picking up their kids from school. Okay, so the standard, polite work-talk question is "Oh fun! How old are your kids?" Well, now I'm asking about family and a candidate could say I was trying to discriminate against them, since they'd be out for school pickups regularly or something. 

Obviously a world difference away from the stuff S&C coaches are doing, but it's pretty easy innocently asking the wrong thing. Especially without practice.

The other thing that anyone who has paid attention for the past 5-10 years knows will come from this too is that any punishment is going to occur on a delayed basis anyway, i.e. "loss of draft picks (next year, not this year)" - because they have to allow for an appellate process and afford adequate time for that to play out.  And, sadly but also just bald-faced realism, this really won't curtail the actions (just as reforms in political processes and the like rarely have the full extent of the impact they're designed for) because the only way to really do that is to remove the desire/motivation to gain the upper leg and the willingness to do so by whatever means necessary.  Barring complete reboots of staffs (not just coaching staffs but boardroom staffs) leaguewide, you're not going to impose ethics on people that don't want them.  This will just ultimately force them to be more covert, go an extra step or two to cover their tracks - it won't actually stop the action from occurring.  Prime example: Improper booster money in college sports; very few if any have ever actually resulted in a "death penalty" as in the dissolution of the program, just harsh-ish temporary penalties that are supposed to convey a message, but very rarely do other than "when you cheat, don't make it so easy to prove you cheated."

[ramssuperbowl99]

10 minutes ago, Dr LBC said:

The other thing that anyone who has paid attention for the past 5-10 years knows will come from this too is that any punishment is going to occur on a delayed basis anyway, i.e. "loss of draft picks (next year, not this year)" - because they have to allow for an appellate process and afford adequate time for that to play out.  And, sadly but also just bald-faced realism, this really won't curtail the actions (just as reforms in political processes and the like rarely have the full extent of the impact they're designed for) because the only way to really do that is to remove the desire/motivation to gain the upper leg and the willingness to do so by whatever means necessary.  Barring complete reboots of staffs (not just coaching staffs but boardroom staffs) leaguewide, you're not going to impose ethics on people that don't want them.  This will just ultimately force them to be more covert, go an extra step or two to cover their tracks - it won't actually stop the action from occurring.  Prime example: Improper booster money in college sports; very few if any have ever actually resulted in a "death penalty" as in the dissolution of the program, just harsh-ish temporary penalties that are supposed to convey a message, but very rarely do other than "when you cheat, don't make it so easy to prove you cheated."

I...sort of agree, but think there needs to be room for increase and decrease in this discussion rather than just yes or no. The corporate culture is another level entirely, and that's been really slow to change in the NFL. And yes, you will certainly still have bad actors that use interviews as a way to harass minorities, and at some level you will never be able to legislate people's desire to follow the rules. But you can change the economics of people following the rules, and while that means the incentive to be sneaky now exists, it also really forces coaches to acknowledge the risk/reward. If a coach thinks their off limits question only helps a little, are they really going to risk getting ostracized from football permanently? Okay, sure, some still will. But every interviewer all the time?

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, kramxel said:

I was wondering what it was all about, but it's detailed in the article:

 

Okay so this brings up an interesting edge case. Since you can't ask about a player's disabilities, if another Shaqueem Griffin comes into the league, teams can't ask him about the lack of a hand and how he's gone about playing around that?

Let's say a deaf player comes into the league, teams can't ask him how he's worked through that disability? Those seem to be pretty relevant questions.

[ramssuperbowl99]

18 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Okay so this brings up an interesting edge case. Since you can't ask about a player's disabilities, if another Shaqueem Griffin comes into the league, teams can't ask him about the lack of a hand and how he's gone about playing around that?

Let's say a deaf player comes into the league, teams can't ask him how he's worked through that disability? Those seem to be pretty relevant questions.

In general, you can ask about their ability to do the job they're interviewing for. So you can't ask if someone is an alcoholic but you can ask if they have ever come into work intoxicated, because only the latter version is strictly related to the job.

So for Griffin, you could ask about what challenges he has overcome and how that's prepared him for the NFL. Or have a conversation about scheme fits, or even physical accommodations in the weight room and whatnot, again as long as you make sure it's all only job-related. If you wanted, technically, you could even ask, "Do you have any physical disability that would prevent you playing LB?" but no one ever would because he obviously doesn't think so. 

Edited January 5, 2022 by ramssuperbowl99

[biggie.]

On 1/5/2022 at 12:21 PM, Spartacus said:

The fact that professional businesses need this is astounding to me.... But then again in any corporate job the level of nepotism that is shown in the NFL wouldn't fly either. 

Trust me I've had my fair share of unprofessional interviewers. I once had a guy say "it's your interview not mine" after asked questions about him...right after he asked if I had any questions.

Guy was such an unprofessional *** I emailed his boss and the guy was at another job in just a few months.

Edited January 7, 2022 by biggie.

[big_palooka]

I really want a team to lose a draft pick for asking a prospect what house in Hogwarts he'd be in. 

[Trojan]

39 minutes ago, big_palooka said:

I really want a team to lose a draft pick for asking a prospect what house in Hogwarts he'd be in. 

Slytherin for greatness or you're not a Raider tbh

[Ragnarok]

On NFLN today, Rapaport said teams couldn't ask about vaccination status in any fashion during these interviews either.  That is particularly interesting because I wonder if some unvaccinated guys would slide if they had to answer.

[Malfatron]

2 hours ago, big_palooka said:

I really want a team to lose a draft pick for asking a prospect what house in Hogwarts he'd be in. 

I want a team of hufflepuffs

[Jraider91]

I mean the stuff like the question to Dez Bryant should have led to a firing, don't have a problem with it most of the unprofessional questions (and a lot of the interviews in general outside of QBs) are completely pointless from blowhards justifying their jobs because they aren't very good.