In this year's draft, NFL Media analyst Mike Mayock got some indirect credit for the Minnesota Vikings' choice of German wide receiver Moritz Böhringer in the sixth round.
Now, he's getting some retroactive credit, also in a very indirect way, for the Green Bay Packers' choice of Aaron Rodgers in the 2005 NFL Draft. Seattle Seahawks GM John Schneider, who was working in the Packers' front office at the time, detailed Mayock's tangential role in the choice on the Peter Schrager podcast.
"I think it was the Thursday before the draft started, (GM) Ted (Thompson) and I were sitting there watching film and we had a TV on and Mike Mayock was going through a mock draft," Schneider said. "And he had Aaron -- because it was like if you got past 12 or 14, right in there, all those teams in there had quarterbacks. So we looked at each other like, 'That could happen'."
Mayock not only suggested Rodgers could fall in the draft, but he projected Green Bay to take him at No. 24.
"Teams (picking ahead of Green Bay) either didn't need a quarterback, didn't have cap space for a quarterback, or had head coaches whose jobs were on the line and probably didn't want a rookie quarterback," Mayock said of his projection.
Schneider went on to explain that he and Thompson then went through some extensive 11th-hour work on their evaluation of Rodgers, just in case he unexpectedly fell into Green Bay's draft slot at No. 24 overall. In so doing, Schneider offered one key acknowledgement:
"... Sometimes when you're picking (late) you don't spend as much time with those players that you expect to be gone," Schneider added.
Rodgers, of course, fell all the way to Green Bay, a tumble the San Francisco 49ers helped facilitate by choosing Alex Smith over Rodgers with the No. 1 overall pick. There's always the chance that the Packers would have taken Rodgers even absent the extra scouting that Mayock spurred by suggesting the tumble could happen.
But at the very least, Green Bay was a little more ready for it to happen.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
