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Scout's Tales: Aaron Donald
There are numerous ways NFL teams acquire players, and the Rams’ scouting staff is always hard at work trying to find the next guy who can help them win. In Scout’s Tales, we’ll visit with members of Les Snead’s personnel department and they’ll share stories of how the process brought certain current Rams to St. Louis.
Area Scout John Zernhelt on School Visits and Seeing Aaron Donald.
I scout the Northeast part of the country, and my area covers Virginia to Maine. Each school that I’m assigned, if they’ve got draftable prospects, I’ll visit them three times. You watch them in summer camp; you watch them later in September and again in October.
When you arrive at a school, you get there early in the morning and you meet with the football operations director. He gives you background information on the kid: the hometown, their family and those types of things. After that, you’ll go to a film room and watch tape for the biggest part of the day. You meet with the strength coach. You meet with an academic advisor that gives you some background on the player’s performance in those areas. You meet with the trainer to see if they have ever been injured, how their rehab habits are. Then you go to practice. You get a feel for their effort in practice, how hard they work and that type of thing.
If they’re a good student and they don’t have any issues academically, there’s no need to dig that much further as far as talking to other people around campus outside of the athletic department.
Our visits are kind of dry. They get scouts in there three or four times a week. It’s like they’re reading the same thing to you every day. Sometimes you’ll have a kid that has an interesting story where they’ve overcome tremendous obstacles to get where they are now. Those things are heartwarming, but the visits are business.
When you get to the schools in the morning, the scouts are supposed to bring donuts or bagels. A lot of the coaches are trying to eat healthier now than they were years ago. I always take the éclair donuts. There’s nothing low calorie about what I’m taking.
I’ve spent the last 10 years as a coach and a scout in the NFL, but prior to that I was a college coach for about 25 years. The relationships I have in the college game are really helpful to me now. That’s the case with Aaron Donald. I’ve known Aaron’s position coach for about 30 years. That was a help. I knew I was getting good information and I knew I could trust him.
With Aaron, he was incredibly productive. He disrupted a ton of plays. He was a great pass rusher and a smart football player. Initially, I wondered how he’d fit with our group because he’s not as tall as our defensive tackles. Michael Brockers
The thing that stood out about Aaron when I visited Pittsburgh was his competitiveness and his practice habits. He competed and went as hard as he could. Everything he did, he was full effort. He was a good practice player and a good game player.
In games, Aaron wasn’t double teamed all the time. You’d think teams would slide protection to him, but they didn’t all the time. They had a good defense. He had his share of 1-on-1 battles, but the important thing was that he won those. Not only would he come free, but his effort was so good that he made sacks, not only off of quickness and freeing himself up, but also by effort and chasing the ball.
Aside from seeing a great football player in Aaron, I love going to Pittsburgh because it’s a great food city. I won’t eat for two days before I get there. It’s notorious for these incredible sandwiches. There’s one place where they call them ‘headwiches’ because they’re as big as your head. You don’t take bites you just gnaw your way through. I can give you directions to places up and down the East coast based on places to eat.
After being a coach for so long, I’ve enjoyed being out on the road. The Northeast is so beautiful in the fall. You’ve got the Hudson Valley in New York and the foliage in New England. Plus, my mom lives in Pennsylvania and I’ve been able to stay with her several times over the last year while I’m traveling, and that’s been special.
