Nick Saban shared the perfect analogy explaining why some NFL Draft prospects don't pan out

The NFL Draft is a guessing game — an educated guessing game, to be sure, but teams have no guarantees that the players they draft will shine on their rosters. Or even have an impact.

So, obviously, sometimes draft picks work out, and sometimes they don't.

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Thursday ahead of the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft, Nick Saban was part of ESPN's broadcast team and shared a perfect analogy explaining why some draft picks pan out and others don't. When Rece Davis brought up balancing a player's potential production against specific traits, Saban shared his experience evaluating those qualities in players.

Saban said:

"I was always a production guy because I always felt like a guy's got to have the right psychological disposition and he can't be an outcome-oriented guy if you're going to be productive because you're gonna focus on what you need to do to get it right. And I think a lot of times when guys have talent, you just assume that they have that, and I don't think that's correct

"It's just like everybody's smart that goes to medical school. But everybody doesn't make it through, and some that make it through don't make good doctors. So it's the same kind of thing with athletes. Some of them have great talent, but they don't have the right psychological disposition. They don't have the right focus on paying attention to detail.

"And I think when people are process-oriented and they define: This is what I want, and this is what I need to do to do it, and then they have the discipline to execute it, that's when you get a talented player who becomes a great player."

The 2025 NFL Draft begins Thursday in Green Bay at 8 p.m. ET.