Quarterback coach George Whitfield's revelation to Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson that a team had someone on a flight with presumptive No. 1 draft pick Jameis Winston, in order to spy on him, is a bit shocking.
But then again, all is fair as NFL teams prepare for the NFL draft.
How deep does it go? Beyond Whitfield's claim that a team had someone in the organization on Winston's flight (probably to the scouting combine) to check on his behavior, there's the story former Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik told ESPN Radio about receiver Justin Blackmon.
Blackmon was a big-time prospect, but also had some off-field red flags. So the Buccaneers had a scout sit at a popular bar on the Oklahoma State campus from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. for a week, according to Dominik, and see how many times Blackmon came in.
Really. This happened. Or at least the Buccaneers former GM says it did.
"We found out there was a bar called the Cricket Inn or the Cricket, which was a popular bar there in Oklahoma State," Dominik, now an ESPN analyst, said. "He [the scout] sat there for one week, went in at 3 o’clock every day and stayed until 11 o’clock at night. That was his job, and we checked how many times did Justin Blackmon come in? And he came in too many times and we took him off our board."
There have been stories like that going around forever. Wisconsin defensive tackle Wendell Bryant, the 12th pick of the 2002 NFL draft, told me that year that he knew bar owners in Madison had been asked by NFL teams leading up to the draft if he frequented their establishment. Deep investigations into draft prospects are not new. Background checks are done. Many teams, if not all of them, look through prospects' social media accounts for red flags. Players are interviewed at the combine and pre-draft visits, though teams are well aware that those players are coached up on what to say.
Consider former Miami Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland's response to what was a pretty deplorable tale, that he asked Dez Bryant before the draft if his mother was ever a prostitute. When Ireland apologized after it was revealed publicly what he asked Bryant, the first line of Ireland's public statement was: "My job is to find out as much information as possible about a player that I'm consider drafting." There was an apology after that, but think about it: Ireland's priority was to get across that first and foremost he was in charge of getting information on draft prospects. Sometimes, apparently, that takes some offensive methods.
Sometimes the NFL's desire for information leads to some seemingly crazy behavior, like spying on a player on a flight or going to a bar for a week straight to determine how much time a prospect spends there. Is it wrong? Maybe. Stalking a potential employee in bars and on flights doesn't seem like a common business practice. But also consider that Blackmon hasn't played in the NFL since four games in 2013, a result of suspensions from multiple failed drug tests. Perhaps the Jacksonville Jaguars, who took Blackmon with the fifth pick in 2012, would have avoided a big mistake if they had shadowed Blackmon at that bar in Stillwater.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
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