The Denver Outlaws long have held the reputation as Major League Lacrosse’s shrewdest drafters.

Dare we say, in Jon Cohen, they trust?

You could almost hear new team president Matt Bocklet gag over the phone at that reference before confessing that, yes, his former roommate and the longest-tenured member of the Outlaws’ staff gets it right more often than most.

“Don’t let Bock take credit for any of the good picks,” Cohen joked.

Cohen, 33, and Bocklet, 34, came on with the team at around the same time, Cohen as a young equipment manager straight out of UNLV and Bocklet as a prized long-stick midfielder who would go on to play more games than any other player in an Outlaws uniform. Both became indispensable parts of MLL’s model franchise.

Cohen climbed the ladder rapidly. He started as an intern in 2007, served as the head equipment manager from 2008-12, straddled the front office and sidelines as assistant general manager and coach from 2013-17 and earned promotions to director of player personnel in 2018 and general manager in 2019.

If Cohen made a move that might upset locker room chemistry, Bocklet would be the first to let him hear about it. They lived together for five years.

“The funny thing about my relationship with Cohen is every time he makes a trade and I think it sucks, that trade ends up working out really well for us,” Bocklet said. “He doesn’t know if a trade he makes is good until I start complaining about it.”

“That dude has not given me a compliment on any move we’ve done in years. The only trade he thought was a good one was when we traded for him from the Bayhawks,” Cohen said. “It was weird living together. On one side, Bocklet is the captain of the team, so if I’m making a deal, I want to make sure it’s not going to shake the locker room. But as soon as I would tell him what we got and he would scoff saying you guys got fleeced, I knew I did the right thing. I didn’t see him complaining any time he held the three trophies over his head.”

No one was complaining Tuesday, either, as Cohen and Bocklet digested the results of a most unusual MLL draft. With teams digging deeper than expected into the depleted 2020 collegiate class, they reached for a couple of relative unknowns in the first and second rounds Monday, grabbing Army defenseman Tom Rigney and Vermont goalie Nick Washuta, respectively.

And while those names might not have generated the kind of buzz as the New York Lizards’ selection of TD Ierlan at No. 1 overall or the Boston Cannons’ superstar sweep of Nick Mellen, Jeff Teat and Michael Sowers, Denver was quite satisfied with its haul.

“We had a lot of eyes on this one.” — Jon Cohen

Goalie Dillon Ward and defensemen Eli Gobrecht and Finn Sullivan — all former supplemental draft steals — defected to the Premier Lacrosse League in the offseason. That left the Outlaws thin on the defensive end of the field. Mellen, widely regarded as the best defenseman in the draft, went one spot ahead of the Outlaws drafting at No. 5.

In Rigney, they saw a field general who might not be a No. 1 cover guy — Mike Rexrode, a former Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year at Rutgers, will fill that role — but who can shut down the second option while communicating the slide packages and hoarding ground balls.

“What really helps is that no one has a season going on right now, so our coaching staff had nothing but time to really dig deep into film and watch a complete game,” Bocklet said. “A lot of times it’s easy to just watch the cover defender and matchup on the other team’s top guy. But to see his presence when he wasn’t covering someone, when he was off ball, seeing his head on swivel when communicating with teammates as well as picking up 51 ground balls as a junior, that shows impressive ball awareness. That’s something we really needed on the defensive end.”

In Washuta, they nabbed the highest-graded goalie in the draft. A 6-foot-3 lefty, he was a four-year starter at Vermont, earning All-American honors when he led the nation in save percentage (60.9) as a sophomore in 2018. Christian Knight might be the de facto incumbent, but Denver would not have used a second-round pick on Washuta if he could not compete right away.

“We’ve watched Washuta since he was a freshman,” Cohen said. “Matt’s cousin, Graham, was a four-year starter at Vermont. We watched at lot of Graham’s games as fans and noticed, ‘Who is this goalie?’ We think he’s the best pure ball stopper in this senior class.’”

Denver also somehow landed their top two targets each at attack (Providence’s Sean Leahey and Hobart’s Eric Holden in the fifth round) and midfield (UMass’ Jeff Trainor and Villanova’s Connor Kirst) in rounds 4-7. The catch? All four players plan to use the NCAA’s eligibility relief for fifth years, with Leahey and Holden in the transfer portal and Trainor and Kirst returning to their schools.

“It was important to us that we got those guys for the future,” Bocklet said, contending that Trainor and Kirst would be first-round picks if they were playing right away. “There was no way had we waited until next year that we would be able to go through the draft and get both those players.”

Cohen estimated that of the 130 players the Outlaws had on their draft board, 80 said they were returning to college. Bocklet said they spoke to at least 200 prospects overall, not to mention the multitude of conversations with college coaches and film breakdowns — a collaboration that includes head coach Tony Seaman, offensive coordinator John Grant Jr. and new defensive coordinator Ken Clausen. All of them were on Zoom while Bocklet and Cohen manned the draft at separate tables in Cohen’s house.

“We had a lot of eyes on this one,” Cohen said.

The Outlaws’ front office excellence goes back to their inaugural general manager, Brian Reese, who hired Cohen, and longtime team president Mac Freeman, who’s no longer involved only because the Bowlen family relinquished ownership of the team to MLL. Seaman came on as general manager in 2012 and took Cohen under his wing. Denver won MLL championships in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

While first-round picks like Matt Kavanagh (2016) and Zach Currier (2017) were already household names, the Outlaws have shown a penchant for drafting diamonds in the rough like BJ Grill (2016), Max Adler (2017), Mikie Schlosser (2017), Bryce Wasserman (2018) and Chris Aslanian (2019).

Question their picks at your own risk.

DRAFT NOTES

Not TD’s Time: The New York Lizards will have to wait a year before having a chance to sign No. 1 overall pick TD Ierlan, who reportedly has been cleared to return to Yale as a fifth-year undergraduate. Ierlan was one of five Yale players selected in the draft, the most of any school.

Mid-Major Movement: Of the 48 players selected Monday, just six came from Power 5 conferences, with high retention rates of fifth-year seniors at schools like Ohio State, Penn State and Syracuse. The Ivy League (14) and Patriot League (9), meanwhile, combined for 23 picks. Notably, there was only one selection out of the Big Ten, Penn State’s Tommy Wright (No. 13 overall by New York). Total picks by conference: Ivy (14), Patriot (9), ACC (5), America East (3), Big East (3), CAA (3), NESCAC (3), Big Ten (1), G-MAC (1), Northeast-10 (1), MAAC (1), SoCon (1), Independent (1).

Hammerhead Homers: The Connecticut Hammerheads (formerly Dallas Rattlers) went heavy on hometown talent, tabbing Virginia’s Michael Kraus (New Canaan, Conn.) with the No. 2 pick and then procuring Brown’s Michael Brown (Wilton, Conn.) and Cornell’s Brandon Salvatore in later rounds. They also mined Yale (located in New Haven, Conn.) for Aidan Hynes and Will Renz.

About Mr. Irrelevant: The Chesapeake Bayhawks chose last in the draft and went with Holy Cross attackman Kevin Kodzis at No. 48 overall. The Santa Ana, Calif., product was the Crusaders’ top scorer with 17 points in seven games this season.

The D in Draft: Denver wasn’t the only team looking to fortify its defense. More than a third of the draft picks were defensemen, long-stick midfielders or short-stick defensive midfielders. Total picks by position: A (16), M (8), LSM (8), D (7), SSDM (3), FO (3), G (3).

A Tale of Two Terriers: Boston University long poles Reece Eddy (No. 14 overall by Philadelphia) and Chase Levesque (No. 18 overall by Chesapeake) were drafted in the third round — the highest picks in BU history. Eddy, who transferred from Canisius midway through his college career, ranked second nationally with 2.67 caused turnovers per game this season. Levesque set career highs in ground balls (65) and caused turnovers (31) last year.

Creative Touch: Unable to hold its traditional live draft show due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MLL released all of the picks on social media and tabbed some of the league’s legends to announce them with a pre-recorded video message. Among presenters were Brian Dougherty, Brian Spallina, Casey Powell, John Grant Jr. and Mark Millon.

DRAFT PICKS BY TEAM

NEW YORK LIZARDS

CONNECTICUT HAMMERHEADS

BOSTON CANNONS

DENVER OUTLAWS

CHESAPEAKE BAYHAWKS

PHILADELPHIA BARRAGE