NFL teams on notice: Character counts

 

CINCINNATI (AP) -A psychologist who helps NFL teams assess a draft pick’s character shakes his head when a troubled player is chosen, then turns out to be nothing but trouble.
“I’ve been telling teams for 25 years the same deal: You can’t afford to take a guy like that,” Robert Troutwine said.
Teams are listening – for one weekend, anyway.
Commissioner Roger Goodell’s crackdown on player misconduct, and his new policy holding franchises accountable when things go wrong, likely will make teams squeamish about taking draft-day risks.
Goodell made examples of Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones and Bengals receiver Chris Henry. Jones got a season-long suspension, and Henry got an eight-game punishment for misconduct.
Team executives got the message.
acter issues.”
The Cincinnati Bengals are the best example of how draft-day risks can deflate a franchise. They had nine players arrested during a nine-month span, six of them draft picks from the last two years. Two of them – Henry and linebacker Odell Thurman – are suspended by the league.
Coach Marvin Lewis said the Bengals will look more closely at character in this draft, but he thinks talk of teams being frightened away from players is overblown.
“I don’t know that it’s going to affect the teams quite as much as people think it’s going to,” Lewis said. “I think it will affect the players, because they have seen (Goodell) deal with things swiftly and harshly.”
The San Diego Chargers are a close second to the Bengals in misconduct – six players arrested, including linebacker Steve Foley, who was shot by an off-duty officer and released by the team in March.
General manager A.J. Smith said Goodell’s crackdown hasn’t changed the way his team evaluates draft picks.
“It didn’t affect us at all,” he said. “Everything with us and our investigative process is extensive. We do the best we can. We bring in good people with good character.”
They can’t say they don’t have enough information.
The NFL does background checks that include school discipline, arrests, court cases, driving records and limited financial records. The checks are done on players invited to the league’s combine, and the information is made available to teams.
Associates, Inc., to develop profiles on players. Troutwine, an industrial psychologist, uses a 75-question assessment that provides insights into a player’s temperament, judgment and attitudes.
Other teams use other psychologists or questionnaires to gain insights.
“Character is important,” said Troutwine, whose first NFL draft work came in 1985. “Ultimately, you win with those people. I don’t understand why people overlook that.”
The answer involves rationalization.
When a player slips in the draft because of misdeeds, he becomes more tempting with each passing round. Players taken in later rounds will get smaller salaries, so teams see less financial risk if problems follow and are more likely to overlook the problems that made them slide.
Psychologists say that’s a huge mistake.
“They say, ‘We won’t take him in the first round,’ then the guy drops to the fourth round and they take him,” Troutwine said. “Well, his character didn’t clean up in the fourth round. He didn’t get any smarter in the fourth round. There are some people that don’t get that. If he’s a bad character guy, you don’t want him.”
Coaches tend to think they can keep a player in line, even when he has failed to meet the expectations of others. And the predraft interviews with eager-to-impress players can leave a good – and totally misleading – impression.
“You sit him down, you bring him in, you talk to him,” Giants general manager Jerry Reese said. “You let him look at you eye-to-eye.”
Often, it’s a tough call. That’s when a team’s commitment to character is revealed.
“For many years, people have been putting a lot of emphasis on character,” said Gil Brandt, a former Cowboys personnel director now employed as a NFL.com analyst. “Sometimes, you think you can change a person, and that’s very hard to do.”
Psychologists would like to see the NFL use its input not only to size up players in the draft, but to help them once they join the league. Sports psychologist John F. Murray said the NFL has a lot of room to grow in that area.
Murray praised Goodell’s crackdown on misbehavior, but wonders whether it will have a long-lasting impact on how the NFL handles its players.
“I like to hope it would,” Murray said. “I’m pessimistic because I’ve seen so many things happen after the last eight or 10 years and thought things might change, but they didn’t.”
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AP Sports Writers Bernie Wilson in San Diego and Teresa Walker in Nashville contributed to this report.