ALAMEDA http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/anthony-zettel-jersey , Calif. (AP) — Mike Mayock is used to being under the spotlight on NFL draft weekend.As the lead analyst at NFL Network, Mayock spent so many hours on the air each draft for more than a decade analyzing prospects and critiquing picks made by the 32 teams that he sometimes even lost his voice before the weekend was over.Mayock’s vocal cords won’t get quite the same workout this year, but he will be under far more scrutiny when he takes center stage starting Thursday night in his new role as general manager of the Oakland Raiders.With three first-round picks (Nos. 4, 24 and 27), as well as the 35th overall selection, few general managers have ever come into the draft with this many premium selections and this little experience making them.“I don’t really worry about it in all honesty,” he said. “The way I look at this thing, from a ‘how do people perceive me’ perspective, is a lot of people doubted that anybody should come out of the media and go be a GM for any team. I know that, and I get that, but at the end of the day here’s the deal, if we win everything will be fine and if we lose I’ll get fired, and I’m perfectly fine with that.”Mayock grew up around football as his father Mike Sr. was a coach at the Haverford School and the University of Pennsylvania.That taught him from a young age to watch football in a more analytical way instead of primarily as a fan and gave him some insight to the mindset of coaches, which has come in handy leading up to this draft.Mayock says he has spent countless hours with the Raiders position coaches and coordinators to learn what traits they look for in players and he understands that he must balance the desire of coaches to fill all the needs on a roster with the approach of a scout looking for the best available players.“That’s my guy. Mike and I, we go back to 20 years, 25 years, to when I was offensive coordinator of the Eagles,” coach Jon Gruden said.“You like to be around people that have similar interests. And unfortunately I don’t have any other interests other than football. Neither does Mayock. So we have a lot of fun talking about just every aspect of football http://www.detroitlionsteamonline.com/jahlani-tavai-jersey , all the time. And his relentless effort, his enthusiasm, has energized the building and it’s a blast.”Mayock also has the perspective of a player, having been a safety at Boston College and playing briefly for the New York Giants where he learned under current Patriots coach Bill Belichick.After his brief career, Mayock went into commercial real estate while dabbling as a broadcaster covering local high school and college games in the New Jersey area. He advanced to do some CFL and college games for ESPN and CBS before finally getting his big breakthrough in 2004 when he was hired by the NFL Network as its draft analyst.Mayock quickly developed into a television star in that role, spending 14 years as a well-regarded draft analyst where coaches and executives around the league sought out his opinion as much as Mayock tried to gather information from them.Those pre-draft conversations are still happening but happening in a much different way.“I think when you are a coach’s son and you kind of grew up going from field to field to field, breaking down tape by the time you were 8 years old. I think the coaches and the scout’s kind of open up to me because of that around the league,” Mayock said.“Those relationships I value, but at the same point now it is a little bit different, and I think it’s already changed. We kind of lie to each other a little bit instead of just sitting there and opening up our draft boards.”Mayock knows this job is new to him and is spending the last few days preparing for whatever might come his way during the three days of the draft.Besides finalizing the team’s draft board, he worked out the smaller details, including reportedly sending home the team’s scouts in order to prevent any leaks coming out of the draft room.He also wanted to learn exactly where everyone will be sitting during the draft, made some changes to what information will be available in the room and then tried to simulate what it will be like when the team is on the clock for real starting Thursday night.“I’m going to have people calling in on the phones and trying to get Jon and I rattled and propose trades,” he said.“Let’s be honest, I haven’t done it before. So, if I’m going to evaluate myself, I have to make sure I’m prepared. There’s two minutes left on the clock and three phones are ringing and there’s a trade, what is the process? How are we going to react as a team? Where is everybody even sitting in the room? What’s the feedback? How quickly am I going to get the information on the trades and the point values?“So http://www.houstontexansteamonline.com/kahale-warring-jersey , there’s a whole bunch of stuff and I’ve kind of got it, I said to Jon, it’s game week. We want to get in there and practice our game plan no different than the team would for a Sunday game.” So what do we know about the Alliance of American Football five weeks into its 10-week regular season?First off, there’s apparently an appetite for spring professional football. Although the quality of play, particularly on offense, doesn’t approach the NFL — nobody said it would, of course — this has not been an amateurish effort. Indeed, as Alliance co-founder Bill Polian stressed from the outset, “These guys are men playing professional football.”Every player on the eight teams is getting an opportunity to display his skills, and lack thereof, to the regular turnout of NFL scouts at AAF games. There’s a longstanding truism in football that whatever you do on a field is on film, and that’s the window into your abilities. “Film doesn’t lie” is how most scouts put it.Those talent evaluators should be most impressed by the performances of the front sevens pretty much throughout the league. If there are Alliance standouts who will quickly catch on with NFL clubs in May and thereafter, look for most of them to come from defenses.And they are allowed to head back to the big league.“There is an official policy, once the regular season begins and ostensibly once training camp begins, we expect the players to stay here for the completion of the Alliance season,” Polian says. “If their team doesn’t make the playoffs, we’d be happy to let him go, other than that they have got to make the commitment throughout the season.“One of the reasons we can do that is our season ends just before OTAs begin (in the NFL) http://www.indianapoliscoltsteamonline.com/bobby-okereke-jersey , so a player can go back to the NFL and not miss significant OTA time and he is in shape because he has been playing.”That defensive performances have so outshined the offenses shouldn’t be a stunner. Certainly, Polian isn’t surprised.“It is always easier to put together a defense because it’s reactionary,” he explains. “An offense requires choreography and difficult and complicated movements and requires synchronization.”The area the Alliance’s offensive woes have been most pronounced has been the red zone, which often has resembled a dead zone for teams trespassing there. There have been 65 field goals compared to 75 offensive TDs. Five teams aren’t averaging 20 points an outing.Most obvious is the level of performance at quarterback and receiver. To get a full appreciation of how good NFL passers are — even the mediocre ones — an examination of Alliance QBs is educational. For the most part, there are enough off-target throws, even if by a foot or less, to cause interceptions. Plus, the wideouts in general don’t have the hands or agility to make the adjustments we see from, say, Julio Jones or Larry Fitzgerald.Dropped passes have plagued virtually every AAF team, something that will prove worrisome for those receiving invitations to NFL workouts, minicamps and training camps. There will be a significant number of players getting those invites.Off the field, the Alliance has shown staying power — isn’t that what it’s all about? — with good TV ratings, digital participation and solid enough attendance.Weather has been a factor in some cities, including blizzard-like conditions for one game in Salt Lake City. Spring isn’t really sprung in several AAF locales, but the league reports that San Antonio is averaging about 28,000 fans and San Diego has had two crowds of more than 20,000. Generally http://www.jacksonvillejaguarsteamonline.com/jawaan-taylor-jersey , attendance has been 10,000 or above, though Birmingham (6,539), Salt Lake (9,302) and Arizona (9,531) have had fewer fans for a game.League co-founders Polian and Charlie Ebersol and chairman Tom Dundon — the major backer who is pouring $250 million into the Alliance — speak glowingly about how many eyeballs are watching. One of the broadcast partners, CBS, even is switching two games from its cable outlet to its main network, including a regular-season contest on April 7, NCAA Final Four weekend.CBS televised the league opener from San Antonio on Feb. 9 and got a 2.1 rating that beat the NBA on ABC.Turner Sports originally signed up for one in-season game and a playoff. It has added two Saturday afternoon matches.NFL Network, the other main AAF broadcaster, has averaged 502,000 viewers, the Alliance says, and saw a rise in audience on a night its game went up against the Academy Awards.“We experienced a 15 percent rise in viewership on NFL Network from Week2 to Week 3, even with our Sunday prime-time game taking place during the Oscars,” Ebersol says. “Our business plan from the beginning was to earn our viewers. We didn’t spend millions on marketing and promotion; we bet the farm that we would earn the attention of fans by putting top-flight football on the field each week and we are thrilled that it paid off. Millions of people have tuned in each week on TV and our platforms and engaged with our product 100 percent organically.”The league also has added sponsors as the schedule progressed http://www.jacksonvillejaguarsteamonline.com/gardner-minshew-ii-jersey , which Ebersol and Dundon point to as evidence the Alliance is addressing the thirst for football in the advertising community once the NFL’s season concludes. Those sponsors include MGM Resorts, New Era, STARTER and TurboTax, with sponsors from the automotive, food and beverage categories in the works.Most of all, the Alliance isn’t losing sight of what it was established to be: a developmental league.“When we started this journey, one thing we wanted it to be is complementary to the NFL and what they are doing,” says San Antonio’s general manager, former Cowboys star fullback Daryl Johnston. “Talking to coaches, one of the things they are frustrated by in this current CBA is the reduction in practice and meeting time. This is what the Alliance would be perfect for, and hopefully at some point in the future for us to bring in some of those (NFL) guys at the back end of the roster … and address some of the areas where the coaches feel there is a need for that development.”FOX Fantasy AutoForm a Racing Team, Compete for PrizesPlay Now!