Mike Maccagnan Interviewing For GM Today

Today we know that Mike Maccagnan will interview with Woody Johnson and his consultants at some point today.

Mike Maccagnan is an interesting candidate with plenty of experience in personnel evaluation, so he instantly ticks one of the boxes for the job.

He has worked in the scouting department for nearly 15 years now, having joined the team in 2000. He was promoted to director of college scouting in 2011, a position he has held ever since.

I was interested to hear more about Mike and in particular, his drafting and scouting strategy. Here are some snippets I found:

"What we try to do is have three people visit each school with a draftable-rated prospect," Maccagnan said. "They'll go in at different points in time of a season. They'll talk to different people. The whole thought process is to get each guy has an independent evaluation of that particular prospect at the school. Once we go beyond that, we factor in the coaches' evaluations down the road later on.

"We'll have pro scouts also get involved in the process doing position checks. We do security background checks, we do physical evaluations of players, so trainers and the director of security gets involved in the process also. At the culmination of the process is (Texans general manager) Rick Smith, who sits at the top of the process and we funnel all the information to, and he's given the tough task of putting a value on each player and then during the draft deciding which player to pick."

Another interesting note focuses on strategy based on where you are drafting:

It's always a little different when you're picking later in the round," Maccagnan said. "You never know who's going to be there and who you may move up and chase. The way the draft sort of worked out, players that we liked and were more or less the best players on the board were available at certain spots in the draft that also corresponded to needs that we had. We don't necessarily factor needs into our picks, but we actually felt we got good value for the picks we did have."

When evaluating players, he places a lot of focus and attention on the players passion for football and attitude to working, Focusing on value and scheme, helping to provide the players for the coach to succeed. While I was reading about Mike, the term "Controlled Aggression" kept popping into my mind. He seems to know what he wants, and he's not afraid to make some moves to maximise value, but at the same time he understands the important of draft picks.

After reading about Mike, I went back to look at the Houston Texans drafts since he became director of college scouting and you can decide for yourself if the results were positive:

2011

1) J.J Watt

2) Brooks Reed

3) Brandon Harris

4) Rashad Carmichael

5) Shiloh Keo

5) T.J Yates

7) Derek Newton

7) Cheta Ozougwu

2012

1) Whitney Mercilus

2) DeVier Posey

3) Brandon Brooks

4) Ben Jones

4) Keshawn Martin

4) Jared Crick

5) Randy Bullock

6) Nick Mondek

7) Case Keenum

2013

1)  DeAndre Hopkins

2) D.J Swearinger

3) Brennan Williams

3) Sam Montgomery

4) Trevardo WIlliams

6) David Quessenberry

6) Allan Bonner

6) Chris Jones

6) Ryan Griffin

7) Justin Tuggle

2014

1) Jadeveon Clowney

2) Xavier Su'a-Filo

3) C.J Fiedorowicz

3) Louis Nix

4) Tom Savage

6) Jeoffrey Pagan

6) Alfred Blue

6) Jay Prosch

7) Andre Hal

7) Lonnie Ballentine

There are some good hits in there, and there are some bad misses. However that's the way the draft goes. It seems as though under Mike, the Texans stay steady in the early rounds and then do a lot of manoeuvring around the 5th-7th round. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing depends on who they took.

I'm very interesting in Mike Maccagnan, what do you think?