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CK: Simon and I have known each other for years through FinHeaven. He was a very well respected poster, especially with respect to the NFL Draft which has always been a heavy passion for him. At one point the three people on FinHeaven that did the most serious draft research and player evaluation became he, Keith Box and myself. That’s when I believe the staff there decided to hand us little “badges” that identified us as what they called “Draft Gurus”. So, one day I just approached the two of them. I said that we all do a heck of a lot of work on draft prospects, why don’t we try and do something more legitimate than just posting? Back then I had in mind that we could publish a draft guide and have people purchase it, then perhaps hold a chat on draft weekend where only our customers would be allowed admittance. All three of us being very busy with our other careers, we were only able to make the draft day chat happen. But, we were surprised at the popularity of the draft chat and how many signed up. We weren’t kidding ourselves that the money actually meant something to any of us. The meager entry fee was always more of a show of how serious you were about participating in a chat that would involve serious discussion, not a bunch of pot shots and bickering from people who get their jollies from coming on the internet to stir things up and act like a buffoon.

Anyway over the years, Keith had to step out a little because he was well on his way to becoming a real doctor and had to work hellish hours for that, not to mention he was getting married and starting a family, and around that time we got to know Richard a lot more. He had actually played college football and was something of a draft buff himself, and more and more we came to respect one another. With Keith’s wholly understandable absence, Richard seemed to become a natural third, and one day he came to us with a proposal to start up a real website this time. He has done an enormous amount of legwork on the site, and he is a good driving force keeping us all in line. We still have a lot of kinks to work out between the three of us because of time consuming careers and family lives, but this is something we can feel sliding into place as we get along in it.

BW: Now, I’ve talked the NFL Draft with you before and you know I respect your opinion to the highest regard. What is your advice to the people out there that want to accomplish the same you have, becoming a draft and prospect evaluator?

CK: Well I don’t know what I’ve accomplished that I can really hang on the wall or put on the mantle next to my Little League trophies or anything, but I will say that my advice is to not be afraid to have an educated opinion on the subject. I see a lot of people fall short of going the extra mile, not because they don’t have the time but rather because they’re afraid to commit. They figure it would be too embarrassing to put in a bunch of work in order to have a really valuable opinion because there is really no such thing as having a valuable opinion unless you work for an NFL team. I’ve found that to not really be true. Part of doing this is about having a good set of eyes but so much of it is just about simple legwork. Just watch a guy play, focus on him and nobody else for three games and tell me what you think. Your opinion is automatically going to mean ten times more likely to be accurate than someone who just watched the game for entertainment value, not paying attention to one player in particular.

BW: How did you start following the draft? What intrigued you so much?

CK: This is a chicken or egg argument because I have a career in stock research. Was I attracted to stock research because of its similarities to draft research or was I attracted to draft research because of its similarities to stock research? I don’t know the answer, to be honest. I know that what first attracted me was football, on every level I just couldn’t get enough of it. And, when the football season would end, the draft season would just begin. I came to put as much thought into it as I did the football season, and eventually I began to put more thought into it.

I can tell you what keeps me going. Finding a football player that does something special still holds excitement. I could do this for 30 years and I’ll always be giddy when I find a Jeff Otah or Hakeem Nicks, guys who are so good that I have to put in three more games and watch for no other reason than the fact they get me excited and make me smile.

BW: Now, the combine is a big spectacle every year. In your opinion, how valid is the combine in predicting success or failure in the NFL?

CK: I don’t think you predict success or failure based on the Combine, but it is important. It’s important because there’s a lot of information that becomes more evident at the Combine that all of us non-scouts don’t and can’t know until then. The only reason for me to dislike the Combine is because of the penchant for everyone to try and sound like the smartest guy in the room by talking about how little it means, and how only irresponsible scouts who don’t do their jobs right take Combine measurements and use them to change their feelings on players, etc. That would probably be somewhat true of a real NFL scout, who has access to different tools in order to ply his trade, and who generally has responsibility over only a certain region of the country instead of trying to grade all 300 or so draftable players. But even then it’s a stretch because draft boards do change as a result of Combine measurements.

BW: I have a friend that wanted your thoughts on Stanford running back Toby Gerhart. What’s your evaluation of him?

CK: Jacob Hester went high and I think Gerhart is definitely much better than Hester. He’s got legitimate athleticism. He reminds me of John Riggins in that cave troll-ish way. That probably either has already become or is about to become a highly overused comparison. But the bottom line is he’s got legit runner instincts, and good athleticism, and a kind of improvisational power that helps him get the job done. As Simon has discussed, he does a lot of his work within the zone-in/zone-out framework with his cutback ability. When you combine that kind of instinct and change of direction ability to be a good cutback runner with legitimate athletic explosion and the kind of brute force to knock tacklers away with your arms and plow for the extra yard or two, you probably have a starting caliber runner. In today’s NFL, it seems nobody is really a bell cow. They all share snaps. I look at Gerhart as a guy that will be one of the two running backs a team will feature; not necessarily the guy that strikes fear in opposing defenses but the guy who gets the job done all the same.

BW: You’ve come a long way since the first time we’ve talked. How does it feel to have your own website and know that your opinion is taken in by so many people?

CK: I honestly don’t know. I try not to think about that kind of thing. I just do what I do best: research and argue.

BW: What is the hardest position to evaluate?

CK: Well if you don’t have All 22 tape then without a doubt the deep safety positions and some cornerback positions are insanely hard to judge on an every-snap basis. The wide receiver position can be hard that way as well. I’ve had some issues in the past trying to get good reads on some the DT prospects as well. You always have to keep evaluating yourself along with the players. It’s important to learn from your mistakes.

BW: Since you’ve been following the draft, who would you say are the 3 best players you’ve ever studied?

CK: Adrian Peterson is definitely one. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a quarterback quite the way I fell in love with Phil Rivers, though before his injury issues I was very close to being that smitten with Sam Bradford. The third would probably be a tossup between Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh. For me, all of those guys (except Bradford) were just the best I’ve ever graded at the position, truly stunning prospects.

Of course that’s just one side of the story. How can you talk about players that ended up successful (or that you’re sure will be) without talking about stunning upsets? I thought the sun shined on Brady Quinn. I was extremely high on A.J. Hawk. I was very high on Glenn Dorsey and also very high on Chris Long. Though obviously we shouldn’t close the book on any of their careers yet, their progress has disappointed me.

BW: What is your ultimate goal when it comes to the scouting world? Is it something you enjoy doing to an extent of wanting a career in the field?

CK: I haven’t decided yet. Taking the plunge from where I am now to where I would need to start out in order to work my way up legitimately, is a tough decision.

BW: I know you had a chance to go to the Shrine Game this year and watch the practices. Who stood out to you the most and why?

CK: Rodger Saffold was consistently the best OL prospect there. He was impressive at every opportunity to watch him. The most impressive receiver was consistently Blair White. The most impressive Tight End was consistently Dennis Pitta, and what you should keep in mind about my adoration of him is that I entered the week down on him, thinking he was just another one-dimensional guy that wouldn’t really make it at the next level. He opened my eyes a little. Kam Chancellor legitimately deserves mention in that group because he was killing people all week, staying up with people in one-on-one coverage, and making all of the right reads, with the right timing and the right angles. The problem is he rarely had a week like that in the regular season. But, he’s a convert that kept getting shuffled through a bunch of different positions, so you never know if that light is only just now clicking on.

BW: If you had to pick any mid to late round player that you feel could make an immediate impact in this year’s draft, who would it be?

CK: That’s a legitimately tough question. Almost by definition there shouldn’t be a mid to late round player that should make an immediate impact. If I had that kind of grade on him he should be an early rounder. There are a lot of ways I could go with this but let me focus on a couple of Arizona State players: OLB Dexter Davis and WR Chris McGaha.

Dexter Davis started 50 games at Arizona State and was a productive pass rusher. He had 22 sacks in 2007 and 2008 before following up with only a 3 sack performance in 2009. What drew my attention to him though was his motor and ability against the run. He has tremendous balance and the ability to escape from the most physically compromising positions on his feet. As a pass rusher, he isn’t consistent but he is legitimate. You should watch the end of the USC-ASU game sometime, when Dexter really took highly rated pass protector LT Charles Brown to school in pass rush. At the Combine, he showed that he is a legitimate athlete, with good all around scores in every direction I thought. He also looked pretty good in drills. I looked forward to seeing him in Shrine week and his results were mixed. As a Jaguars scout was telling me one day, it was unfortunate that in that kind of setting a guy like him wasn’t going to get the opportunity to show off what he does best, which is rush the passer. But as a linebacker all week, the thing he did show me is that he could transition from being a guy that lines up in three-point stance and plays the run well, to a guy that lines up on the line as a strong side backer in a two-point stance, and really destroys the outside run to his side. That’s not an easy transition, even a good run defending defensive end can lose the ball and be too unreactive in space to do the same as a SAM linebacker. He showed me that he could do that, and so I’m intrigued about him as a possible OLB in the 3-4. The caveat is that during that week of Shrine practice he had a lot of trouble adapting to coverage, especially against the ultra suave Dennis Pitta. Every linebacker there struggled against Dennis Pitta, and a lot of NFL ones will as well. The transition is going to be a work in progress for Dexter but he does have the pure athleticism, motor and ability to get out of trouble on his feet to do it.

With Chris McGaha, I think you have a guy with a legitimate NFL body with legitimate NFL strength. He was only one bench rep off from the leader among WRs at the Combine. What he also possess that is most interesting to me is lower body explosion and some speed. He’s a low 4.5 guy, and when you have a 40 inch vertical and a nice sized body with some strength, that’s enough. He really caught my eye with his all-around game. He can line up in the slot and find the holes between the zones. He can be a fierce blocker at times. He regularly lined up on the outside and ran deeper routes. He has great hands and eyes for the ball which are only going to get better since he only just had lasix surgery to correct 20/60 vision after the Combine. The thing that makes him a batteries-included guy as a rookie, though? His ability to use his lower body explosion to get beyond the jam and the bump without it screwing up his timing or spacing. He stays glued to the tracks no matter what a physical corner does to him in the jam, and it helps him get immediate vertical separation. He can run a little bit after the catch as well. To me he’s like a bigger, stronger Brian Hartline, and seeing as how I think elite physicality is the major obstacle getting in the way of Hartline’s becoming a #1 WR, that’s a compliment to McGaha. He is one I’ll be watching. A guy whose opinion I respect compared him to Austin Collie.

BW: One last question. Who would you say is the premier draft “expert” out there today and why?

CK: That’s a tough one. They’re all very good at what they do. I’m consistently impressed with Mike Mayock, though I think he sometimes gets a little too amped up about certain guys and starts playing the game where you say things to make waves more than because they’re true. I’ve always respected the amount of research Mel Kiper puts into his work. Guys like Tom Marino, Mike Lombardi and now Daniel Jeremiah are gold because they get to speak with the experience of having done this all before.