With the NFL Draft less than two weeks away, Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan and his personnel department have entered the final phase of the scouting process — in-house visits.
"When we bring in a player into the facility for one of our 30 visits, it affords us another opportunity to spend, more or less, another day with the player," Maccagnan said. "When we go through this process, sometimes we'll invite players to the facility that maybe didn't attend the Combine, so we want to get a physical on them to see how they are from a health standpoint.
"The other thing we do a lot of the time is with players that are high profiled or that we have an interest in at any spot in the draft, we get the chance to really get a feel for them from a personality and intangible standpoint."
Maccagnan's philosophy is to build the roster through the draft, bringing in young talent with good character. While he can get a grasp of each player's disposition during their time in New Jersey, teams are not permitted to conduct any physical testing. However, the coaches put their visitors' brains to the test.
"From a football standpoint, we get them on the board, watch videotape with them and get a feel for their knowledge of the game," Maccagnan said.
"When we really evaluate a player, the majority of our evaluation is based on their film," the GM added. "That's the core of everything we do, but there are so many other parts to how we evaluate and gather information that are also critical."
