Ben Dogra is no longer an NFLPA-certified contract advisor. That’s one of the biggest revelations of the NFLPA’s updated posting of the current representation class for NFL players.

The Players Association refreshes its list of all licensed contract advisors in October after the deadline for dues payment passes on the first of the month. This year’s update brought news of several key exits and other highlights, but none is bigger than the departure of one of the first true titans in player representation. 

For those of us who have followed the business of the game for the last two decades, it’s hard to believe Dogra might not be at its forefront. When I launched ITL in 2002, Leigh Steinberg and David Dunn were fighting it out over their respective roles in the growth of Steinberg Sports, which had become a behemoth in the field of player representation. Soon, however, Steinberg, Dunn and others in the industry had a rival at the top in Dogra. By the time he had risen from an intern at SFX in the late 90s to one of the faces (along with Tom Condon) of CAA, Dogra was not just respected, but feared. I remember having a conversation with one of the top contract advisors in the game when Dogra was at the height of his powers, and I was struck by the awe in my friend’s voice, as well as his desire not to cross Dogra. From the stories of Dogra’s near-fights (literally) with NFL executives to tales of his magic tricks (again, literally) performed for friends after several late-night beverages in Mobile, Dogra cast an oversized shadow over the industry.

When Dogra was dismissed by CAA in 2014 for cause, the impact across the industry was seismic and, ultimately, began his descent. He even briefly lost his certification, and though it was restored in 2017 (and though he won a big arbitration judgement against CAA over his termination), his career never regained its luster. Still, at one time, he represented Adrian Peterson, Patrick Willis, Mario Williams, A.J. Green and countless others, and for that decade from about 2004 to 2014, if there was a black player slated for the top 10 in the draft, Dogra was the agent to beat. His last first-rounder was Ohio State’s Damon Arnette (1/19, Raiders, 2020), and per the latest NFLPA rolls, he has no active clients in the league today. In the history of player representation, no list of truly great NFL agents is complete without Dogra’s name.

If you’re an aspiring agent hoping to one day break into the league, Dogra’s rise from unpaid intern at SFX to the NFL’s mountaintop in about a decade’s time should inspire you. On the other hand, if you’re an established NFL contract advisor regularly representing the NFL’s best, his disappearance from the limelight should be a reminder that nothing is forever, especially in pro football. 

There’s a lot more to be learned from the new NFLPA list of 1,026 contract advisors. We’ll be talking more about who’s out, who’s in, and what the latest list tells us about the state of player representations at Inside the League in our Rep Rumblings and in our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.