Catching Up With CBS NFL Today Analyst Charley Casserly

CBS' Charley Casserly

Q: Take us inside the war room. Is it as crazy during the draft as it is made out to be, or do you have contingency plans for everything in advance?

Casserly: That’s probably a misconception, that it’s crazy. It shouldn’t be, because you have all these weeks to organize your board, and once your board is organized, you don’t worry about what other people are doing. You just take your board, and if people take things off, you stay with your board. Now the thing you have to be aware of is value. You have so many players in the first round, so many players in the second round, and so many players in the third round, etc. You won’t have 32 in each round, because there won’t be 32 guys that have that value. So what we do is, say if we’re picking 25th and we’ve got 20 guys with first round grades and all of a sudden they’re going off pretty fast, you may want to think about trading up, or if they’re all gone trade back. So as you’re getting ready for your pick, you have people on the phone calling ahead of you, and people on the phone calling behind you to see what it’s going to cost to move up, or what our pick is worth if we want to move down. So you’re kind of monitoring those phone calls, of which most of the time there aren’t any offers. Most of the time, once you get past the first round, you’re not really thinking about moving up, so where it can get a little hectic is all of a sudden you get a couple phone calls about trades when you’re on the clock. But you just have to sort that out.

The other thing is you have to maintain discipline in the room. If they, meaning coaches and scouts, know who is in charge, and they know how the room is going to work, then the room stays disciplined. If they can start lobbying and trying to get things changed on the board during the draft, then they’re going to do it. But if they know that’s not going to happen, then you have a pretty disciplined room.

Q: The Dolphins have already signed JAKE LONG as the No. 1 pick, and you signed Mario Williams before the draft in ’06. What are the benefits to signing the top pick prior to draft day?

Casserly: The obvious one would be he’s in camp on time, therefore he can start on his rookie year and have the best chance for success.

Q: Long will receive slightly less guaranteed money than JAMARCUS RUSSELL did last year. Is this a sign of things to come in terms of halting the trend of annually increasing rookie salaries?

Casserly: No, I think it’s how you want to interpret the contract, because his guaranteed money is less slightly, but it’s also a one-year-shorter contract. So assuming he’s a player, then he’s going to pick that up faster, because the contract is shorter.

Q: Should there be a rookie salary cap? Do you see the NFLPA ever agreeing to one in any form?

Casserly: Absolutely, there’s too much money paid to rookies. That should be changed. But the union doesn’t want to change it and it’s a negotiated item, so that’s why it’s never been changed. The NFLPA has never shown any inclination toward changing it. In fact, I saw a quote by GENE UPSHAW this year that was emphatically against it.

Q: How much does a draft prospect’s off-field history weigh into draft decisions? Should teams consider off-field history more or less?

Casserly: Well it weighs into it, there’s no question about it. It’s not only the character thing, but you’ve got work habits, toughness, intelligence, all of those things weigh into it too. It’s certainly part of the process, there’s no question about that. It may vary a little from team to team too. I think (the character issues) are very important, very important with me.

Casserly's Selecting Williams With Top Pick In '06 Originally Met With Consternation From Texans Fans

Casserly: I think on average you’ve got to give it three years. I think some players you can know within a year one way or another, whether you want to admit it or not. But I think on average three years. Sometimes it takes four for certain players, because they may not have the opportunity to play as much or their skill level coming in is such that they need extra development.

Q: Do you think the media overhypes the draft in the months leading up to draft day, or does it receive an appropriate amount of attention?

Casserly: This is where you could say overhype comes in, the fact that the number of players that are going to contribute as a rookie is not many. So when you start talking about filling needs and solving problems for a team immediately, I think that’s the part that gets probably overhyped. The draft is just part of a process of improving your team. It’s certainly critical, but it’s only part of the process of improving your team. But there’s no question it’s exciting. The fans love it, and I think the media coverage of it goes hand-in-hand with the fans’ interest. I think where the media has kind of gotten carried away with it is their analysis of how good and bad these players are, because in reality, none of us know more than a fraction of what the teams know about these players, having been with a team and knowing the access to information that you have.

Q: What’s your most memorable story from the NFL Draft?

Casserly: It’s not from me, but the most unique story I ever heard was in Tampa Bay. Many years ago (’82), they took a guy named SEAN FARRELL in the first round, a star at Penn State. The team had a representative there and they gave the guy two names, but he turned in the wrong name, Farrell. They wanted to take another guy, BOOKER REESE. Well, they take Farrell, and all of a sudden they have to scramble to trade for Reese, and they did. And Farrell ended up being the better player. So that’s probably the most unique story I can remember.

Q: You’ve worked in the front office and in the media. Is there another dream job in pro football to which you aspire?

Casserly: No. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve held a number of jobs and been very fortunate to be with some Super Bowl teams, and now I’m living the second dream because I always said at the end I wanted to do television and teach in college. So we’re having fun with this. I’m teaching at two different colleges (George Mason and Georgetown). CBS is my main job, but I’m doing some stuff with the NFL Network this spring and I do some Comcast stuff. So it’s pretty varied, and I get a chance to do a lot of different things.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge moving from the front office and the CBS "NFL Today" set to the classroom?

Casserly: It’s probably not very big for me, because I started out as a teacher, so being in front of a class and teaching, I’ve done that. I would say your biggest challenge would be just being prepared on content and being up-to-date on things, the preparation part of it, which again I’ve done all that. So the process to do it doesn’t change, it’s just the appropriate research for the class, that’s your biggest challenge, and that’s just work.

Q: What’s your favorite part of working on the CBS "NFL Today" show?

Casserly: The people I work with. You know, getting to work with JAMES BROWN especially, who is a long-time friend anyway. And the first class operation that it is. And the other people that I work with, BILL COWHER, DAN MARINO, BOOMER ESIASON, SHANNON SHARPE, they’re all great guys. So it’s a great group to work with, and we have a lot of fun.

Q: What is a sports business story you will be watching closely this year?

Casserly: The collective bargaining agreement, I guess, is the thing that hangs over everybody and what’s going to happen with that.

Q: What do you anticipate happening with the CBA?

Casserly: I don’t know. There’s been a lot of rhetoric, and I think we always have to be careful about rhetoric and reality, but certainly the owners seem to have voiced their concern that this deal is not working the way they envisioned it. But again that’s rhetoric. It’s not that I don’t believe what they’re saying, but October is when they have to make a decision, so I think what is said in October might be the most meaningful statements.

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