Don't overvalue visits

<p><em>Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky</em></p> <p>Jon in Franklin recently hit the mailbag with this:</p> <blockquote> <p>Hi Paul, Starting to see stories about teams bringing in potential draft choices in for private work-outs and interviews. Are teams limited to how many of these meetings they can have? Do the Titans have any meetings set? What kind of history do the AFC South teams have with actually drafting players they meet with? I ask this final question wondering do teams use these meetings as a diversion so as not to tip their draft strategies.</p> </blockquote> <p>It's a good time to run through the rules here and to discourage you from reading too much into what names you see connected with which teams.</p> <p>Teams can have 60 official 15-minute meetings at the scouting combine.</p> <p>Then they can have 30 prospects visit them at headquarters, plus visits that don't count against that total from collegians who played at a nearby school or are from a nearby hometown.</p> <p>Yes, with the Jaguars drafting at No. 8, the names we find out go to Jacksonville - and the names we learn do not - may be part of piecing something together in terms of the Jaguars' intent. Some of it may be designed, too, to fog up perception.</p> <p>Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to think a team is going to take a guy just because they have him to town.</p> <p>So, I will not generally use this space ort spend much time telling you John Doe was in Houston to meet with the Texans because:</p> <ul> <li>For every John Doe I learn about, there could be three others I don't hear about and naming a small percentage of the guys can serve to be misleading. I know the Titans announce their visitors in a couple big lists and we will share something that comes out like that, still offer a disclaimer. But what if the agent for Player B advertises the stops his guy makes and the Agent for Player B does not? The guy with the talkative agent is no more likely to get drafted by a particular team than the one with quiet representation.</li> <li>The Texans may be meeting with Doe to finish crossing them off their list because of his balky knee/ankle/attitude/arrest history.</li> <li>The Texans are probably like most teams in that they draft plenty of guys they had multiple meetings with and plenty of guys they've hardly talked to. On draft day, lot of guys say, "Yeah, I knew the Texans were interested in me way back at the Senior Bowl" while others say "Never did I imagine it would be Houston, the Texans aren't one of the teams I've spoken to, ever."</li> </ul> <p>Just some things to keep in mind as we head into April and names connected to teams start to fly around at a faster pace.&nbsp;</p>

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