Duties of the NFL's Puppetmasters

In this week's edition of Walkthrough, Mike Tanier of FO provides a general view on the daily life of an NFL GM, as told to the author by Charley Casserly. The raw data's much more valuable than Tanier's observations ("There's an analogy possible between running a football team and running a business? GTFO!"). The author does, however, provide the data in a way that makes it quite easy for us to reach some conclusions of our own.

The GM seems first and foremost to be a man with his pulse on the current pool of talent, whether that be talent on his own team, on other teams, or unsigned. In this respect, he's like the head of scouting operations, delegating his own and others' time in attempting to have an account of the best football being played in the country. What distinguishes the GM from the scouting director, besides having certain executive duties regarding contracts, draft picks, etc., is the GM's capacity for mediating between coaching and scouting staff, i.e., for relating to the coaching staff realistic expectations concerning the availability of certain kinds of players and for relating to the scouting staff the preferred characteristics of players on the roster. But lest the GM appear a static phone-jockey, note that he is often mid- to late-week on the road himself, watching practices and games, interview assistant coaches, coordinators, even strength & conditioning staff where prospects are to be found, ensuring that he has primary evidence of the presence of even the most intangible qualities of potential signees.