For years, Rick Spielman never had to think about his first pick of NFL draft day. There was no need to plan for contingencies or plot alternative paths: during his decade and a half with the Minnesota Vikings, the decision of how to spend his morning was set in stone.
‘I had to walk my dogs exactly three miles,’ Spielman tells the Daily Mail. Then? ‘I had to go to breakfast with my wife – she doesn’t even like breakfast, but she had to go with me.’
Rick and Michele Spielman headed to the same small diner every April. ‘And that all started after my first draft with the Vikings, when we were able to get Adrian Peterson.’
Back in 2007, Minnesota took Peterson with the seventh overall pick. He went on to become one of the greatest running backs in history. ‘Well, this ritual worked,’ Spielman soon decided. ‘I might as well do it as long as I’m here in Minnesota.’
Spielman first joined the Vikings in 2006 as VP of player personnel. He had the final say over the draft even before being promoted to general manager in 2012. Up until 2021, Spielman continued to walk his dogs, wander into that diner and then mine for gold.
Among their other notable picks of that era? Justin Jefferson, Harrison Smith and Stefon Diggs.
Veteran NFL executive Rick Spielman spoke to the Daily Mail about the reality of the NFL draft
While at the Vikings, he drafted Adrian Peterson – one of the greatest running backs ever
These days, Spielman works as a senior advisor for the Jets. New York is the sixth team he has been with over 39 years in the NFL as a player, staffer and executive. It all began in 1987 when – rather ironically – the former linebacker went undrafted.
By 1990, following brief stints with the San Diego Chargers and Detroit Lions, Spielman had hung up his cleats, bought an atlas and begun working as a scout. He went on to join the front offices of the Lions, the Chicago Bears, the Miami Dolphins and the Vikings and, ahead of the 2026 draft in Pittsburgh, the 63-year-old peeled back the curtain on one of the most pivotal weeks in the football calendar.
Spielman explained this annual game of ‘cat and mouse,’ the importance of steak and why a functional draft room should resemble a wake. He revealed, too, how he turned to armed forces negotiators in the search for ways to dig deeper into the soul of NFL prospects. ‘Just show me how to do it,’ he asked the experts. ‘But I can’t waterboard these guys.’
This week, Spielman is helping plot another rebuild in New York. The Jets hold the No 2 and No 16 picks in the first round of this year’s draft, which runs Thursday through Saturday.
Nine months of preparation has gone into these three days when, over seven rounds and 257 selections, 32 NFL teams will battle for the best talent out of college.
The Las Vegas Raiders hold the No 1 pick, with Tom Brady and Co expected to take ex-Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. Then the Jets will be on the clock. But all the big calls should be made by then.
‘You have all the medical information, background information – everything that you need to make the best decisions possible,’ he says.
Jets executives and coaches gathered one final time on Monday to discuss their plans and what they will do in the event of any surprises. ‘So on draft day, there are no questions,’ he says.
Former Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is expected to be the No 1 overall pick
Spielman also drafted the brilliant wide receiver, Justin Jefferson, while with Minnesota
Cam Ward was selected by the Tennessee Titans with the first overall pick in the 2025 draft
‘If it’s not decided by then… that’s when you make mistakes.’ So Spielman has a golden rule: ‘Once draft night comes, no one talks in that room… unless that general manager asks you, let him do his job.’ It is to guard against last-second panic. It doesn’t sound like much fun, mind. More like a funeral.
‘Yeah, that’s why I made sure we had good snacks and good meals between our picks,’ Spielman says. Thursday tended to be steak night. BBQ was another favorite. ‘All the food you’re not supposed to eat,’ he says. ‘A reward after everybody is sitting in a room for 12-14 hours a day.’
Spielman won’t tell the Daily Mail when the Jets decided on their opening pick. Or if it’s even locked in.
‘Unless Mendoza falls out of the sky to us at No 2, we’re probably going to have a pick of the next best player we feel in the draft,’ he says. ‘Who that is… is not my decision.’ That is down to GM Darren Mougey and head coach Aaron Glenn.
By pick No 16, the Jets’ preferred path may have been blocked by their rivals in this annual test of nerve and nous. The hope then? They have built a plan that ensures you are ‘as excited about [player] C as A,’ Spielman says.
Over recent months, prospects have been put through an exhaustive screening process that includes interviews, workouts, tests – both physical and psychological – and background checks.
The NFL Combine allows teams to meet players and watch them complete challenges such as the 40-yard dash. But teams dig much, much deeper and turn to much, much stranger techniques in the hope of scratching beneath a player’s veneer.
Some are evaluated using games of cornhole or rock-paper-scissors. Highly-rated receiver Jordyn Tyson revealed this week that he played – and beat – Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni in a game of ‘H-O-R-S-E’ basketball during his visit to Philadelphia.
Others have, according to reports, been asked questions including: Do you find your mother attractive? What is your murder weapon of choice? Boxers or briefs?
The NFL Combine allows teams to meet players and watch them complete physical tests
Ex-Miami defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. (pictured) was involved in a fatal car crash in 2024
All to find a clue, any clue. Teams will examine a prospect’s personality, behavior, school work and family life.
It recently emerged that ex-Miami defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. – who could end up with the Kansas City Chiefs – was cited for careless driving in a 2024 car crash that ultimately left one of his passengers dead. It wasn’t news to many NFL franchises.
‘I don’t believe there are many secrets out there that teams don’t know,’ Spielman says. That is perhaps no surprise, given the financial gamble they take on every prospect. And yet is all their investigative work worth it? So many draft picks still backfire, after all.
‘Agents do such a great job prepping these players for the pre-draft process,’ Spielman says. ‘Teams have different ways of trying to get to the [real] answer.’
He turned to professional negotiators. ‘I have to make sure that we’re able to try to get to know this person,’ Spielman told them.
‘[So] what are ways that you can break this barrier, this rehearsed answer you’re getting all the time, or to find out truly what the character is and what this kid is made of?’
The 63-year-old won’t disclose exactly who he worked with. But he did reveal that these experts came into to talk with his coaches and scouts about ‘interview techniques and how to actually get to the answers that you’re looking for.’
Those crumbs of information can prove pivotal in deciding how a team feels about a player. When someone visits Florham Park, for instance, the Jets don’t waste a second.
‘Once they walk into the building, until the time they leave the building, there is a specific plan in place on trying to get to these answers,’ Spielman explains. ‘It isn’t just: “Hey, let’s bring him in and have a cup of coffee.” There’s an actual gameplan in place.’
The Jets are led by GM Darren Mougey (center left) and coach Aaron Glenn (center right)
By the time they are selected on Thursday night, top prospects have seen their credentials pored over – in front offices, on TV and online – for months.
It is in the later rounds, when many fans have stopped watching, that the hidden work of scouts begins to pay off.
Back in the 1990s, the Lions tasked Spielman with scouring teams from West Virginia to South Florida. With no internet, no computer and no cell phone. ‘I had to buy an atlas to know where the heck I was going,’ he explains.
To produce film of players, he would carry around an 8mm projector, trawl through hours of tape and ‘splice’ clips together. When Spielman was introduced to video cassettes?
‘I said: “This was the greatest invention ever, I don’t know if can get any better,”‘ he recalls. Thankfully, modern-day scouts have far more tools but still no guarantee that what they see is what they will get in the NFL.
Those days are behind Spielman now. He has done his time on the road and in the GM chair. He joined the Jets last February but, come Thursday night, the buck stops elsewhere. So what will his draft-day ritual involve this time round?
‘I don’t have to make decisions’ he says with a chuckle. ‘So I may go through the drive-thru at McDonald’s!’
