Draft system

So much depends on how you rules work. Where I have coached, league rules require that every player starts or offense or defense and then depending on the specific league they must play at least the whole first half at that position to one league where you virtulally cannot take a player off the field for more than one play per quarter. FOr example if you shuttle in your plays on offense, you must use two full time defensive starters to do it.These leagues also have very specific weight limits for ball carriers. My favorite league has all players over the weight limit wear 90 numbers so that if they intercept, recover a fumble or whatever, they are considered Down immediately. These kind of rules vary greatly and affect how you draft. But I think there are several general points I would emphasize and then a couple of specifics.
I will always take the too small, quick athlete over the large, too slow athlete. Again it depends on the general talent in your league, but there is a 40 time, probably between about7.2 to 7.5 above which an athlete just can't compete, no matter how big he is. At the end of every draft I've been in, there are always a couple of small kids, at 10 - 11 they would probably weigh around 70 pounds that other people are afraid of for being too small, but have good ability. They usually make good defensive ends in my system. I know a lot of folks take those same guys and crash the center guard (a gap if you will) but I never really liked that. The reason I put them outside is just the experience of seeing good short players, even heavier ones, unable to find the ball because they just can't see over anybody. I run an old split defense, like Penn State and Texas ran back in the 60's and 70's, obviously with some adjustments, but although it looks more like a 6-4-1 its basically a split. Those defensive ends have three basic responsiblities, 1)take on the lead blocker on the sweep with his inside shoulder on the blocker's outside shoulder, 2)stay home on the reverse, and I don't mean trail the opposite side sweep, I mean stay on the line of scrimmage and on the reverse grab a leg and hang on until help arrives. I never expect these guys to tackle talented backs in the open field. But when they do their job, my best athletes should be able to recover and make the play.
I believe that the most important thing you must do in a draft is keep yourself from getting into mismatches that good coaching can't overcome. However if you're playing against kids from different talent pools, that may not be entirely preventable. But look at the overall talent pool. It is always an advantage to have the league's fastest kid. And if the team you have to beat has that kid, you'd better get somebody close or you can't easily compete. If the teams you play against have good big kids (I'm not talking about 8.5 40 guys, but big guys with talent, then you better have somebody to match up with them. Remember, where I coach we started from scratch ever year, with no carry overs so all we had to do was match up with coach's sons. And we also have players too big to carry the ball in the league. I always liked taking good, big players early. In a draft of ten teams, I'd take a good, big lineman second, unless the best backs were gone early in the first in which case I'd often take two good big lineman 1-2. THe other coaches would see linemen they projected three rounds later going fast and would immediately have to reach for guys that didn't belong there. The backs that I would have taken 1-2 were still there at 3-4, or at least some of them were.
The tryout depends on how you allowed to do things. Our league ran everybody through a 40, then divided them into groups. Ten teams,ten groups. You work with your group for 15-20 minutes then pass them to the next guy. Some places don't allow you that individual look, but have one common tryout for all to see. I really don't like that process because what I want to see, isn't what the next guy wants to see. Unfortunately, one year they had sixteen teams and just about wore the kids out. BUt with good administration in such a case you can have two or three nights with each night different kids. You could also let two teams have a shared tryout. But I digress.
If you are allowed to individually try them out. It depends on how long you get. I can learn a lot in a 15-20 minutes period. FIrst I sit them down and talk to them. Typically we will work out in advance how we will divide the kids in a particular group.
AOL is about to shut me off so Ill finish here and start part 2 immediately.