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The NFL, under Goodell’s watch, has done a wonderful job moving the project to different cities each year. The ones in Chicago, Philadelphia and Nashville, as well as the one in my hometown of Dallas, were all special in their own way. But New York was unique and offered an easy selling point for the players I was recruiting.
In 2005, we only invited six to the draft: two quarterbacks (Rodgers and Alex Smith of Utah), two running backs (Ronnie Brown of Auburn and the late Cedric Benson of Texas), one wide receiver (Braylon Edwards of Michigan) and a defensive player. (CB Antrel Rolle of Miami). By recent standards, a very small group.
My job as a recruiter was to call the teams and figure out who they were going to pick in the first round, then try to put everything together as a bogus project. They trusted me to keep the information confidential, and I did. It allowed me to do my job of bringing the best players to New York for a week of draft festivities. It was a promotional tool and it worked. News outlets across the country have been following every move of the players in the city, taking photos and videos of them in famous parts of the city to recount their week in the Big Apple.
About 10 days into the start of the draft week, I got a sign-up from Smith, who I learned was San Francisco’s target with the No. 1 overall pick. This information was leaking everywhere. I knew it, Smith knew it and so did Rodgers, who did not accept his invitation. I get it. No one wants to be second; no one wants to risk being the last man standing.
But Rodgers finally agreed. Some might say blindly, as he was unknown at the time of his acceptance, days before players boarded a plane for the East Coast, where exactly he would go. I knew for sure where the other players would end up in the draft, but due to a confluence of factors Rodgers was always the wild card.
Miami held the second pick and needed a quarterback, with AJ Feeley (8 starts), Jay Fiedler (7) and Sage Rosenfels (1) taking turns from the Dolphins in 2004. But there was a new Sheriff in Miami, and his name was Nick Saban, who came from college ranks with no prior decision-making power during his short time in the NFL, a reason most observers viewed him as unpredictable in this. project.
Lucky for me, Coach Saban and I are going back. I got to know him when he was the defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns under Bill Belichick, a year after leading Toledo to a 9-2 record in his first job as head coach. I recommended it to Michigan State in 1995 and again five years later to LSU.
Either way, Saban and I spent a lot of time together on the road to pro days after being hired by the Dolphins. He chose my brain over the outlook, and I learned his inclinations in the project. In mid-March of that year, we met in four different cities over four days. Two of the stops were back-to-back in Salt Lake City and Berkeley, home of the Cal Golden Bears.
Smith’s Wednesday practice in Utah was exceptional. He showed an athleticism that, in my mind – and, more importantly, in Saban’s mind – separated him from Rodgers, who followed Smith the next day with an impressive professional day at Cal. The two campuses are 725 miles apart, but the difference between Smith and Rodgers was extremely slim.
Saban and I had dinner with Smith and his parents the night of his training. It was becoming clear to me that the new Dolphins coach had already decided what to do with his team’s first pick.
Although he never told me directly, I believe he wanted a quarterback in the draft, and in his final evaluation, it was Smith and Smith only. It seemed like he loved Rodgers, but he love Black-smith. He was telling me about the days when we were trying to recruit Reggie Bush at LSU and seeing a lot of Smiths at Helix High in San Diego, where the two were on the same team. He knew Smith very well, and in Saban’s case, I believe, familiarity bred contentment.
Rodgers was more of a wild card to not only Saban but the rest of the NFL. Why didn’t anyone sign the Chico, Calif., Quarterback out of high school? Why did he come to Butte Community College? And what was going on with that high ball grip he was taught at Cal by coach Jeff Tedford? Speaking of Tedford, why have so many of his previous star college quarterbacks (Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, Kyle Boller) had less than stellar careers in the NFL? Rodgers next in line?
These are all the questions Saban considered when he decided if Smith wasn’t there at No.2, he would pass over Rodgers and take a running back, or trade down. On the morning of the draft he called me around 7 a.m. from his car phone and asked which running back I would take first. We both agreed that Ronnie Brown was the guy.
With Brown almost certain to go to the Dolphins, something I was sure of a few weeks before Saban’s last call on draft morning, I was starting to see what could happen. A Rodgers slide was inevitable; how far was the question. At this point, I knew teams that preferred Auburn’s Jason Campbell to Rodgers, so I wasn’t even sure Rodgers would be the second quarterback taken (or third, given that the ultra-athletic quarterback Arkansas’ Matt Jones was considered a tight end first-round conversion).
I gathered all the information I could, and if the teams were honest with me – and they always had been – I knew the top 23 picks, and none of them included Rodgers. The No. 24 pick was held by the Packers, who, of course, had Brett Favre on their roster.
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