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The last Football Morning in America guest column during Peter King’s vacation is a doozy.

Colts G.M. Chris Ballard, the PFT 2018 Executive of the Year (the prize was simply the satisfaction), peels back the curtain on the scouting process. Not entirely, but enough to shed some light on how decisions get made by one of the NFL’s best decision-makers.

One of Ballard’s first orders of business after becoming the G.M. in Indianapolis was to hire Brian Decker, a former Green Beret who helps the team interview draft prospects. The attraction? “[H]is unique interviewing techniques help us strip away the agent-speak and happy talk that surround so many players in the draft process,” Ballard writes.

Careful not to reveal “any trade secrets,” Ballard explains the five general questions that Decker tries to answer: (1) whether the player has a favorable developmental profile; (2) whether he has a profile that supports handling pressure and adversity; (3) whether he has a good learning and decision-making capacity; (4) whether he is a character risk, and, if so, whether the team can do anything to support him; and (5) whether he’s a fit.

After learning about Decker in this article from Seth Wickersham of ESPN, Ballard got to know Decker while Ballard worked for the Chiefs. Ballard eventually decided to hire Decker, if Ballard ever had the chance to do it. Ballard did, shortly after the 2017 draft.

“I can’t sit here and say I knew exactly what his role was going to be, but I did have a strong conviction that Decker would really help us get to the core of a player’s football character, which in turn would help us in our hit rate in the draft,” Ballard writes. “His role has really grown in two years and has become a valuable resource to our coaches, scouts, and players.”

Based on the success of the Colts with Ballard running the show, and with Decker helping him, it’s working. Extremely well. After landing a couple of first-team All-Pros in 2018 with the assistance of Decker, it will be interesting to see what their 2019 rookies can do to help Indianapolis build on an unexpected playoff berth from a year ago.