ESPN NFL Nation reporter Jason Wilde explains how far the Packers have come in their draft process from the days when feedback wasn't necessarily encouraged. (1:15)

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Six players. That was the test. When Ron Wolf wanted to see if a wannabe NFL scout had the chops, he'd put him in a dark film room at Lambeau Field with a stack of blank scouting reports and a remote. At day's end, the job applicant would turn in his six reports, and Wolf would quickly have his answer.

"It's a very simple process. But you know right away," Wolf, the retired Green Bay Packers general manager and Pro Football Hall of Famer, explained this week. "Because you can tell who's done their work, who's actually watched the guys, and who's sat in there and drank Coke and ate potato chips.

"You can tell right away whether they can evaluate or not."

And in 1995, when Sam Seale emerged from that room, Wolf -- having known Seale as a player during their time together with the Los Angeles Raiders -- got confirmation of what he had already suspected.

"That was an easy hire. He had a tremendous feel for players," Wolf said. "Becoming a scout, it's not an easy job. I've had a lot of people think they could do it. Some people can. Most people can't. But those who can, you draw circles around their name and do everything to keep them."

For more than 20 years, Seale has shown he can while scouting college prospects on the West Coast for the Packers. And during last weekend's NFL draft, it only seemed like he had seized control of the Packers' draft room.

Five of the team's seven picks -- first-rounder Kenny Clark (UCLA), third-rounder Kyler Fackrell (Utah State), fourth-rounder Blake Martinez (Stanford), fifth-rounder Trevor Davis (California) and sixth-rounder Kyle Murphy (Stanford) -- all came from Seale's region. All told, 14 of the Packers' 35 selections over the past four drafts have been from the West.

Go West, Young Men Over the past four drafts, the Packers have selected 14 players from the West Coast, 12 of whom played in the Pac-12. Year Round (Overall) Player Position School 2016 1 (27) Kenny Clark DT UCLA 3 (88) Kyler Fackrell LB Utah State 4 (131) Blake Martinez LB Stanford 5 (163) Trevor Davis WR California 6 (200) Kyle Murphy T Stanford 2015 1 (30) Damarious Randall DB Arizona State 3 (94) Ty Montgomery WR Stanford 5 (147) Brett Hundley QB UCLA 2014 2 (53) Davante Adams WR Fresno State 3 (98) Richard Rodgers TE California 4 (121) Carl Bradford LB Arizona State 2013 1 (26) Datone Jones DE UCLA 4 (109) David Bakhtiari T Colorado 4 (125) Johnathan Franklin RB UCLA

"The [other scouts] upstairs are like, 'Why are we going to the West Coast so much? We ought to go down to the SEC,'" Seale said with a laugh. "But to me, football is football. I went to Western State College in Colorado and I played nine years [in the NFL]. So if you're a player, you're a player.

"I don't care if you're from Alabama, if you're from USC, wherever you're from. You just have to come in and compete and play. And hopefully all these guys we drafted from the West Coast know that if they come in here and compete, they'll have an opportunity to be part of something that's great."

That's how Seale views his role -- as a small part of something great. Including general manager Ted Thompson, the Packers have 17 people in their personnel department, with director of football operations Eliot Wolf, director of player personnel Brian Gutekunst (formerly the team's college scouting director) and senior personnel analyst Alonzo Highsmith directly below Thompson on the organizational flowchart. (Seale is next in the pecking order.)

Unlike the bad old days, when the Packers were a perennial loser and the warnings of a wise West Coast scout went unheeded, Seale's word clearly carries weight -- even if he dismisses the fact that so many recent picks have come from his region as "just how the board fell" and emphasizes that Thompson, Wolf and Gutekunst thoroughly study and discuss all of his area's players after he files his reports.

"So it's not just me," Seale said. "I just [get to] live in San Diego. God's country."

There's more to his importance than location. The 53-year-old Seale is the team's longest-tenured college scout, and his voice is universally respected. In 2012, Thompson changed his title to West regional scout -- making him the only one of the team's seven college scouts with an official area designation in his title.

"He's not afraid to stand up and say, 'Ted, I hate this guy,'" Eliot Wolf said of longtime West Coast scout Sam Seale. Evan Siegle/The Green Bay Press-Gazette

"I love Sam. I've known him forever," Eliot Wolf said. "He worked for my dad, he really works hard, he knows the players, knows his area, and he's not afraid to give his opinion. He's not afraid to stand up and say, 'Ted, I hate this guy.'"

Or, love this guy. In 2005, when the San Francisco 49ers made Utah quarterback Alex Smith the No. 1 overall pick and Aaron Rodgers fell to the Packers at No. 24, Seale had written up both players -- and preferred Rodgers. Of Thompson's 12 first-round picks, half have been from Seale's area: Rodgers (California, 2005); outside linebacker Clay Matthews (USC, 2009); outside linebacker Nick Perry (USC, 2012); defensive end Datone Jones (UCLA, 2013); cornerback Damarious Randall (Arizona State, 2015); and Clark.

"Two guys who are going to be in the Hall of Fame, scouted by the West Coast guy," Ron Wolf said of Rodgers and Matthews. "Pretty good."

Though Seale was right on Rodgers and Matthews, he admits he's whiffed on others. It's the nature of the business. The best scouts win their bosses' trust by being right far more often, and that's what Seale has done.

"When I first got here, Ron Wolf told me he didn't bring me in here to be a 'yes' guy," Seale said. "He [also] told me, 'This isn't a science. You're going to be wrong. Just don't be wrong all the time.' It's a hit and miss thing.

"But I think from being an ex-player, I think I can read guys. I'm just hoping that I have enough ability and I hope that Ted has enough confidence in me that if he asks me about a player, and I say he can play, or I say he can't play, that he'll believe me. And that's all it is, is a trust in a guy."

Wolf, whose Hall of Fame bona fides came from his trade for quarterback Brett Favre (set to enter the Hall himself in August) and how he returned the once-proud franchise to prominence, said that though GMs make the final calls -- and get the praise or criticism that comes with such calls -- area scouts like Seale are the lifeblood of the personnel process, which begins with their school visits each fall.

"They're the guys that do the dirty work. They're the guys that are driving long distance in their car, bouncing from school to school, workout to workout, writing reports, finding out all the information they can possibly find out about each and every prospect," Wolf said. "They have to know the player inside and out -- know his foibles, what kind of teammate he is, what kind of person he is on and off the field, all those little things. They play such an important role in your success."

Especially for a draft-and-develop operation like the Packers.

"I'm dependent upon these guys. ... They're everything," Thompson said. "You have to give those guys enough space and enough rope to blossom as people [and as] scouts. If you don't, if you're just going to ignore what they say and go your own way and go with what you're thinking all the time, then you're going to squelch their ability to do great things themselves.

"I've always tried to give them positions where they had to stand up and say, 'This is what I think, and this is the reason I think it.' We feel like that's the best way to go about scouting and working in the personnel department."

That formula works. Not only have the Packers been to the playoffs each of the past seven seasons and won two Super Bowls since Ron Wolf's 1992 arrival, but five NFL GMs -- Thompson, Seattle's John Schneider, Kansas City's John Dorsey, Oakland's Reggie McKenzie and Washington's Scot McCloughan -- cut their scouting teeth under Wolf. Thompson's three right-hand men -- Eliot Wolf, Gutekunst and Highsmith -- could be GMs soon, too, although the younger Wolf is expected to succeed Thompson in Green Bay.

Meanwhile, Seale will keep doing his thing, content to search for the next generation of Packers while enjoying San Diego's perfect weather and bragging about how he gets to golf year 'round.

"We all have aspirations to do more, but I'm at the stage of my life where things don't bother me," Seale said. "I don't need a title. Titles are for people -- and I'm not saying everyone, this is just my thinking -- that have great egos and want to say 'I'm this' and 'I'm that.' I don't need that.

"If [a promotion] happens, it happens, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. I've worked for some of the greatest people. The guys that I work with, I really like. ... I know what I mean to this team, and that's all that matters to me."