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We recently explained that there may not be a significant correlation between the number of pre-draft visits and actual interest in a player. Sometimes a player does the rounds extensively because teams have to ask extensive questions of him.
The opposite is also true. If a team has no questions about a prospect, there is no need to invite them to visit.
Commanders coach Ron Rivera recently told Rich Eisen that the team didn’t bring first-round wide receiver Jahan Dotson to town for a visit before picking him for that very reason.
“We had a good selection of players available,” Rivera told Eisen via NBCSportsWashington.com. “One of the guys in that group was Jahan, who made us feel very, very good. We felt so good about him that we didn’t take him on a 30 day visit just because we felt we knew enough about him to be the guy we were hoping to get a chance with, and really we did. . . .
“He was a guy we didn’t really have any questions about. We had over six of our staff there for his pro day, they did a lot of background on him while they were there. We did a lot of backstory on him all the time. We just felt like this was a guy we didn’t have any questions about, so as far as he was concerned we didn’t want to raise any flags, so we decided not to include him.”
That’s another reason not to bring a guy or a top 30 visit. Other teams will find out about it, and then they might think the Commanders are after him. As it happened, they were able to trade down and still get him.