Payton Talks About The Undrafted Free Agent Process

Plenty of you have asked about the procedure for signing rookies after the draft. And since some of you still think we just make stuff up (and, as far as the rest of you know, we don’t), we’ve decided to explain the system with the assistance of someone who always tells the truth all the time. A football coach. Saints head coach Sean Payton addressed the process on Friday in a media session after a rookie minicamp practice. Basically, it’s like recruiting, but it isn’t. “It’s like you have two hours where with recruiting there’s a time frame that exists for months where you can build up a relationship with a player and a coach and a family member,” Payton said. “But when the draft ends, you’re really selling on the phone for two hours. “Hopefully you’ve been able to make contact with a scout, maybe a prior phone call to build a relationship so when that time comes there is some familiarity with a scout or coach to bring the player to the forefront. . . . It’s a very similar process throughout the league. Once the draft is winding down, you’re looking at your board and getting on the phone and trying to make sure that you’re answering all of their questions. The challenge is that the agent and the player are getting calls from five or six different teams and the challenge is making sure that that’s organized.” At times, a team will get a given player by offering more up-front money. But some players, like Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, will take less money if he thinks he’ll have a better chance of making the team. “Some team might decide to pay a player $15,000 as a bonus as opposed to $5,000 and that might sway a player,” Payton said. “The one thing I do think, though -- and the agents have done a good job with this -- is that they have studied closely the depth charts and tried to find the best place for their client. “The additional five, six or seven thousand dollars really is not going to offset the opportunity to make a roster. You’ve heard me talk about our experience in Dallas with Tony Romo, after the draft as a free agent when he had eight or nine teams calling and he took less money to come to Dallas. I think the decision was good on his part because he looked closely at the depth chart and felt like that was a place where he had a chance to make the team.” The reality remains, however, that even with a seven-round draft, undrafted free agents face an uphill climb. It’s not impossible, as Romo’s experience shows. But it ain’t easy.