The pre-draft whisper mill has reached its annual crescendo, reducing ambitious reporters to chasing and sharing whether certain teams have (drum roll, please) placed telephone calls to certain players.
Here’s the reality. In the days before the draft, every team will call pretty much every player in the pool of draft picks and potential undrafted free agents.
For scouts, the hay has been crammed into the barn. And so they’re told to reach out to every player on the board and confirm the player’s phone number on draft day, his agent’s phone number on draft day, the closest airport to the player (if he’ll be one of the picks potentially whisked to town for a press conference), and whether he has suffered any recent injuries (as if any player will voluntarily disclose this).
It’s not news, then, that teams are calling players in the days before the draft. It would be news only if a team didn’t call a player in the days before the draft.