NFL draft: A do's and don'ts list

The secret to making the right moves in the NFL draft?

"It's easy," jokes the retired Al LoCasale, a longtime Oakland Raiders executive. "You pick the winners and avoid the losers."

Ah, if it were so simple. Even the best talent evaluators in the business would love to bat .500 when it comes to identifying which college prospects will actually live up to their potential.

Those scouts, coaches and executives spend countless hours studying video footage, interviewing anyone and everyone associated with the player, searching for every morsel of information that might indicate whether selecting him merits what could be a multimillion-dollar investment.

"So much is put into this thing," said Fox analyst Jimmy Johnson, former coach of the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys. "Our guys would study these players throughout their college career, you'd give them two different psychological tests. But one of the most important things to me, especially if we were taking a guy in the first round, is I just wanted to sit down and talk to him."

Even the best minds in football can't always spot the college players who will succeed in the pros, but there are some general guidelines most evaluators know well. Among those rules:

A bad football body doesn't necessarily mean a bad football player: Some guys look good getting off the bus but can't play a lick. Others have astoundingly bad bodies -- have you seen the jiggling YouTube video of Alabama tackle Andre Smith running the 40 shirtless? -- but are remarkably quick and agile on the field.

Nose tackle Kelly Gregg looked like a roly-poly farm boy when the Baltimore Ravens signed him to their practice squad in 2000. Players took to calling him Buddy Lee after the pudgy, baby-faced mascot for Lee Jeans. But Gregg could play, and still can.

"He was the most un-football-looking guy I'd ever seen," former Ravens coach Brian Billick said. "When he showed up, I asked [then-defensive coordinator] Rex Ryan, 'Is this your illegitimate son or what?' But whatever you needed to get done -- stuff the run, get to the quarterback, line up at fullback -- Kelly Gregg was your guy."

Don't be scared off by a small school: Sure, it would be nice if all NFL prospects were as seasoned by big games as players from USC, Ohio State or Florida. That's not to say experience under the brightest lights is a must, though.