With the NFL Draft exactly four weeks away, Pro Days are in full swing.
Head Coach Lovie Smith has attended Pro Days at Michigan, Georgia, Texas A&M, Ohio State and Cincinnati in recent weeks. While game film provides a lot of information on draft prospects, Smith says he uses Pro Days to fill in the blanks on a player, both on and off the field.
"When you go to a pro workout and luckily, in my case, I've been around the game a little bit, most places we go, I know someone that I really trust," Smith said. "I trust their opinion for them to be able to give it to me in detail. Most of the Pro Days, there's multiple hours you're going to be there. So you really do get a chance to observe how he handles it in a comfortable position for him. In video, you don't get a chance to see every little movement that you would like to see a player make and when you're in charge of the workouts, you get a chance to see."
Earlier this month, over 300 of the nation's top prospects performed individual drills and held interviews at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Caserio is interested in seeing more from those players off the field, but also in getting to know players that didn't perform at the Combine. Pro Days also allow for more comparison across position groups when they perform similar on-field workouts. More of these interactions lead to a better overall evaluation for what Caserio calls, "a pretty significant investment" in a player.
"Seeing some of the better players throughout the country, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to draft a player from that school," Caserio said. "But really the benefit of going Pro Day to Pro Day is you might be able to see similar players with similar positions and kind of how they work out back-to-back. Maybe you see something live that you didn't see on tape. I'd say that's the main benefit. And then you have the opportunity maybe the night before to meet with a player. I think sometimes everybody kind of gets caught up and so-and-so met with this player. What does that mean? Really, you're just trying to gather information. We're still in the information-gathering stages. So that's really that's the benefit of the Pro Days."
The NFL Draft takes place Thursday, April 28 through Saturday, April 30 in Las Vegas. The Texans currently have 11 picks in this year's draft.
Click here for the 2022 Pro Day schedule:
